|
|
Turns
Sand. Thousands of grains surrounding the rusted legs
holding up the playground swing set. Start there. Start
with something small, something memorable. Turning
the sand over in my mind, I see the blue veil of memory
slide like a lover over the Now. My palm tickles. Grains
send waves of pleasure from my hand up to my neck,
collecting in electric pools that spark when I shiver.
Denim irritates my knees as I plant them in the sand.
I dip my hand into the earth, bring a tiny fistful to my lips.
I chew the sand contentedly. This is one of the first things
I remember. I wait for my turn on the swing. At the apex
I float. If moments are infinite, and the universe a string
of tethered moments, then I am eternally motionless
somewhere. I remember the windows of the nursery,
the pleasing warmth illuminating stray motes of dust.
I see my favorite toy, a tube I hold towards the light,
When I turn the eyepiece, fractals of red and blue,
green and yellow spread uniformly over a white plane.
Too soon it is nap time. I have always hated sleep.
Miss Harvey tickles my back to relax me. So I sleep,
for a time. Well before I am supposed to wake I climb
over the rails of the crib with blue bars, shimmy down
between the wall and the bed and place my naked feet
on the cold tile floor. I creep to the door, peek out to see
if any big people are looking, hurry to the room across
the hallway. I hate sleep. I hate this room even more.
It is an endless hall of child-sized toilets. One window
faces away from the sun, and only a little light steals
inside. I back away, afraid the toilets will try to eat me
if I turn my back on their menacing porcelain mouths.
One roller skate. I am on a deck overlooking a glen
of pine trees. I remember their scent – sharp, diagonal.
I didn’t know those words then, but I remember feeling
the smell of pine sap penetrate me. I can remember
remembering time spent under a Christmas tree, losing
time in the reflection of pink light on blue ornaments.
I remember the old family cat Tigger belly up next to me.
I remember remembering these things while wearing
one roller skate because my friend Joshua was unwilling
to take turns stumbling across the rough wooden deck.
How do you share a pair of roller skates? Instead of trying
I pick up a splinter and idly turn it over in my palm.
Stubborn
We sat down on a pile of rubble
where we stopped to catch our breath
after clawing our way out of a maze
we stumbled upon while exploring.
Between ravenous draughts of air
you accused me of being a stubborn man.
I managed, in between shallow breaths
to muster up one cynical laugh.
A few moments of solitude passed
while we [...]
For Bonnie on her Thirty-First Birthday
Your name is Beautiful, the truest label
any human language could give you.
I revisit childhood often, and I smile
while you thrive in forgotten moments.
Seventh grade –
I get a candygram while dissecting a frog.
My cheeks burn as classmates tease me,
but now I have the strength to be grateful. [...]
The Birth of Cut
Cut remembers the Owl Moon.
Cut remembers the gray snow,
the rusted spade which sufficed
as a shovel in a toddler’s hands.
Cut remembers the black ice,
revisits the thrill of terror as two
threadbare tires lose their traction.
Cut wants to feel that alive again.
Cut remembers the moldy phrase
“missing in action.” Missing in -
Cut has acted. [...]
Worst Moments
While we were smoking cigars in the blue beach chairs
decorating my front porch, my friend confided
“You always remember the best moments
and forget the worst when you mourn lost love.”
He may be right, at least generally, but not tonight.
Tonight I forcibly recalled a random fight you and I had
over the way we play [...]
Fractals 01
You speak. You inhale worlds to exhale
fragments. Your mouth partitions
one from another, finds crevices
in which to seed complex divisions
like crabapple sprouts in sidewalks.
I watch one shard splinter and shatter.
What was once a whole jackknifes
away from your lips, its tip colliding
with an equally proportioned bit
of what was once to form a fractal.
So two [...]
3:18 PM
It is a benevolent spring. Today’s weather
permits thousands of bodies to pepper
Miami’s placid beaches. Coral reefs,
dying while the ocean’s pH plummets,
for now break the Atlantic’s waves
into smaller, calmer fragments.
Twenty miles inland, thunderclouds
arrange themselves in temporary summits
above the same Everglades where
with a valid permit you can kill
the feral boas who’ve outgrown their novelty.
Between [...]
I misplaced
the future.
It was there
one minute,
gone the next.
What’s odd,
however, is
the gaping hole
the future left
in my chest.
I didn’t bleed.
Instead I wept
myself to sleep,
then slept myself
into my pasts.
I tumbled from
dream to dream,
up one path and down
the endless next,
in a futile search
for any self
the future left
untouched.
Because you change
a thing when
you observe it,
because the future
stared straight
through me,
every [...]
She floats beneath the surface
in a pool with obsidian walls.
Her hair flows like electrons:
each strand is a field of probability.
She floats beneath the surface,
her eyes closed, her pursed lips
whispering bubbles into existence.
I cannot tell if she is praying or dying.
My head hurts; I hear myself say,
“You know her.” I do know her.
Her name [...]
that I have pursued an academic career in English literature, I have long had a keen interest in the human body. Sometimes that’s been a good thing, and other times bad.
Since childhood, I’ve been acutely aware of any sensation in my body. I remember the first time I noticed something physically “off” [...]
|
|
