Past barbed wire infantry,
Maple battalions
send paratroopers
leading.
Prop-toppers spin round and
round and
land like lace handkerchiefs.
Amazed
I watch this off-spring
float to the target —
(a yellowed matchbook cover).
I feel like a string
from a lost kite, too heavy
to float.
I will lie here and
watch them
spin.
My boyfriend peeled
the cotton skin over
his head lifting upwards
as though he were sliding
downwards into some bronze
hole, his body a rich thick
aromatic Sunday AM coffee.
He was cold he said
as the cotton slid
down like blinds. Dale
has AIDS he said
as he tied my arms
round his chest. I didn’t
like him much he said.
But my arms only tightened
like a Chinese finger trap.
I’m going to lose him.
Many nights ago,
when the moon lost her innocence
and ran behind a rock in the pond,
I sat on the edge of the grass and listened
to old frogs splash
and giggle over a prudish male.
I scratched my thoughts in sand
like a caveman drawing pictures
of his wife bathing.
But you weren’t there.
I poked sense into dirt
like horses that count for sugar,
and knew why it always rained on a picnic.
Drunks always stare at little children
and scratch their pockets on October’s last try.
Skirts like to fly —
Up here —
No here —
Up
until drunks sit by themselves
and wonder about little boys.
But you sit and watch your lovers
at the park that you slept with.
Park benches are so cold in November.
Some leaves never fall from trees,
and others, like laughter, are covered by snow.
Leaves often float downstream and catch
sunlight on each tip. But you don’t.
And when they come to sleep in my pond,
when tips dip and fall into water
I see why you lie where you do.
So tonight,
when I walk home —
down by the street light that winks as I go,
I’ll listen to cars roar in garages
like we used to in bed.
And I will look at your bench
and smell your friends.
My laughter will be heard by no one.
I’ll remember you at Christmas time.
My house was made
of second hand wood and colors
and built like a magazine cover.
A man, ready
to jump into the river
with a rock tied around his neck,
shoelaces tied together, I remember
what I want to say; I am a teenager
on my first date!
Patrolmen sit behind the smiling
Lady that smokes filter brands on the lighted board
down County Trunk G, waiting
for my cue.
Tonight I am someone who has lived
in this stage-prop house and upon hearing
slapping noises like hockey sticks
kissing a puck, I wonder like a child
to department store mannequins, if
houses were built stronger —
would people pretend to be
themselves.
The most palatable way to describe what happened was breakdown: here one moment and gone the next; as though the circuit-breaker had flipped and all power shut down. However, there wasn’t darkness; there was light, but a different kind of light; a brightness of light, unfiltered light, new light. There was pain and heaviness and listlessness; a wet woolen blanket anchoring me, keeping me sullen and stuck.
I don’t recall much of my past though it sits in the back of my mind much like past novels I have read; I recall the characters and the story but its significance has lost its weight; images too, are there, pasted into photo albums and which draw certain emotions, but no longer carry consequence. Tomorrow and all future tomorrow’s sit in a low ground fog obscuring my footing and therefore I await for tomorrow to come into today before I take my first steps.
Therefore I have today, simply. I have these twenty-four hours. I am free to interact and experience this day fully, without the encumbrance of yesterday or the anticipation of tomorrow. Today stands alone, like an oak or black chestnut tree in its glory: everything is new to me. Even time slows as I have no activity which reaches backward or pulls forward. Today is my focus and my luxury.
