on their bellies, looking out over a cliff. rocks and sand, red and brown like some alien planet.
“i think… there,” the grizzled man said and pointed out into the distance. “can almost see it.”
the younger man squinted his eyes, strained in the sun. “what? what’s there?”
“where the fissure begins,” the older man snorted. “there’s always a fissure.”
“i think i can see it, behind the rocks, the sand barely covers it,” the younger man took a deep breath, “almost looks like a trap.”
“the fundamental divide always is son.” the grizzled man rolled onto his back, fished out a cigarette from his shirt pocket. “it always fucking is.”
Monthly Archives: September 2007
she does have tumors in her head
and it takes him a while to say it, he’s been pacing around the office floor, getting up without speaking, ghosts his way out of the maze of cubilces and into a conference room. there in the dark he hears the results of the mri, things have been pretty bad so far, the inner lining of her lung had detached, and when they thought things were getting better, she hemorraged in her brain and now there’s numbness down one side. he says these things with a detached curiousity, as if he himself is also hearing it for the first time, but he’s heard this all before.
at my reaction he says, it’s funny how your facial expressions are much more animated than my own.
fifty more
“ultimately”, he said, lighting another cigarette, the last still smoldering inches from them both, “there is no shelter. you cannot escape you.”
he leaned back and dragged deeply and slowly exhaled. i itched for a cigarette for the first time in years. he stared at me as if he knew, “buck up son, you got fifty more years of this to deal with.”
begin-again
“try again. fail again. try harder. fail harder.” -Samuel Beckett, Worstward Ho
begin-again the breathing again, in the dark again, alone-dark again, silent-dark again, like a cracked coffin, like fall before the cold sets in. like pushing against empty space, running through velvet and cloth, like the way air must feel when trapped inside a drowning lung, slick and with no way out.
begin-again the dream again, the living again, the sweat-skin again, the sweet-skin, like salted molasses, like summer at its pitch. like a lazy patch of grass, like two bodies under the cover of a tree, like two entwined in the shade as one, like hands opening and closing but pushing away.
begin-again and again, again without stopping, without breathing, run through it, survive this as well, survive it all, run it all into the ground again, have nothing again, alone again, forever again, never again, own and only again, as always again.
comfort fall
she tosses and turns. little limbs splay to the left, then the right. she rubs her eyes, stares at the ceiling. she wakes up asking for mommy.
mommy’s at work, i say. she asks again. it goes like that sometimes, as if she’s still dreaming and she doesn’t know she’s awake already.
mommy’s at work, i say, want to go downstairs? and she nods and wobbles up and climbs into my arms and just hangs there, goes limp. i would think she fell asleep again if not for her giggling as i bound down the steps, always with the horrific thought that because i can’t see the stairs because i am holding her in my arms, i will miss a step and we will tumble and i will snap my neck or hers most definitely, so i wobble down kind of quickly, kind of slow and she laughs because she thinks it’s a game when it’s this horror show in my head but we get to the bottom without incident like we always did.
and after the whole bathroom routine, i convince her that she wants eggs and hash browns for breakfast and even a little bit of juice too and she does just that without complaint, like we’ve been doing this every day all along when in actually it’s literally been months since i cooked for her, months since we sat up together in the morning at the same time.
and sitting with her here now, eating, helping her eat, her mad hair from sleep clipped back and away from her face, watching bugs bunny, i have my daughter back after such a long drawn out summer, and we fall into the routine, we fall back into comfort.
to have your puppies
she says to him, “i want to have your puppies.”
she’s the dream that you cannot wake up out of, the name stitched underneath your tongue. and you wish you could hold her, you wish you could open her up. you want to find where all the passion comes from, how it pours out of her, even when she sleeps. how her eyes pierce you suddenly, nail you into place, make you swollen and hard and urgent and forgetful of all the tenderness you’ve mustered.
he says to her, “i’m not some sort of animal, really i’m not.”
and she laughs, “oh baby, but ain’t you just meant to be?”
bespeak of
To speak of generations. Yes begin at that. To speak of the leatherwounds so careful, like fingerfeathers along the brim, along the beachthroat, before choking, before breathing. I felt so much of some other place other than here, other than the sound of bones hammered for marrow being sucked out, being beaten out. Yes, somewhere at that, between the vocal chords and the trachea, just before breathing, before the chestrise, the bellydescent, before I forget every reasonbeing, every nuancestrand of this one moment more. Of you with your jawsnap, of your colorsleeve, forgotten, so many times over forgotten along the shore.
the summer wanes
the nights inch their way up your spine, they tingle and whisper and sweep across your eyes. as the summer draws to a close, it’s the heat that first leaves. it chills and you never notice it until you step in the void it has left. suddenly, like a promise never kept. you laugh, where did the summer go? where has all the heat gone? you settle down on the bench, hands on your knees. so foolish, you shake your head. there’s night on the horizon and it’s coming for you. and the fall, and further still, the winter. full of ice and snow and hard wind. even then, even with all the dead leaves, something of this left, something of this that will never leave. and the summer goes without ever saying goodbye.
and here the beast
and here the beast remembers all things
here the beast scratches out its trail here
the beast lives in the past and in the present
here the beast lives in all our lives here the beast
makes everything suffer in its path
here the beast stupidly plods along here the beast ruts
amongst the trees here the beast defecates
on everything it has given birth to
here the beast licks our wounds to its satisfaction
here the beast is caught
here the beast begs
here the beast suffers like never before
here the beast goes down
here the beast gets mounted
on your wall there the beast is
forgotten
hot damn, he says
hot damn, he says, let’s give it all away, he starts peeling off his tie and his shirt. he isn’t much to look at, but the shirt is nice and the tie is of the highest quality.
come right up, one day only! he shouts. he scrambles for a milk crate to stand on and while shuffling to and fro he fumbles off his shoes, a sock, tosses them into the sky. italian, with tassles. last year’s but he had barely broken in the sole.
hot damn, he says, i’m just giving it all away today, and with that he unbuckles and whips the belt out with his left hand. it’s a bit awkward but he manages to swing it over his head like a lasso once or twice before he lets go of it.
so of course you know what’s coming next! he smiles, licking his lips, he looks absolutely terrible now, standing with one black sock on, the other off, pale white ankle, so vulnerable, so weak, so exposed.
you know it people, he grimaces trying to unbutton the inner button of his pants, the one he never knew what it was for but he gets to it, and strips them off, pants and briefs all in one go, and he’s laughing hysterically.
hot damn, he says and he swings them over his head again, this time with his right hand because it’s easier that way, he should’ve known.
it’s really not all that bad, he says, choking on his own laughter, swing his clothing over his head, gyrating his hips as if he was in a hula hoop, hot damn it ain’t half bad now is it?