as it dawns upon you
the day is gray and
the wind restless and
you’ve disappeared
behind this cloud
of cigarette smoke
and these scars
Category Archives: frags
abandoned pieces, fragments, scraps
unattractive beast
you find yourself as an unattractive beast whose lips drag along the dust picking up flecks of skin someone long since gone has left over scratches the legs of a chair make when it is suddenly pitched backwards beneath your spine. nothing has ever been more this figment of your imagination other than the utter words you used as wounds traced over your belly where you wish there were scars sealing the fat you cannot get to. and when your ears pierced widen to the sound of your unease, the hair choking your chest prickles stray yearnings like the night you coughed up more than what you meant to say.
regret and sorry are such useless twins.
locking in place
the grizzled man stood up slowly, as if testing the bones before locking the hips in place. “boy, it’s over now. time to start again.”
“what if,” the younger man sat, legs bent close to his chest, arms resting on his knees, “what if i can’t. what if i don’t know how.”
“heh,” the grizzled man dug out paper from one shirt pocket, tobacco from another, “you know how.” he rolled the paper between callused fingers, wet the edge with deft severity. “you’ve always known how to begin things.”
the younger man closed his eyes and shuddered in the sun.
there’s a place where everything goes
there’s a place for sadness, the sharp exhale through dry lips
& a place for happiness, the gap between the heart and the ribs
there’s a place for wounds, the bleeding along opened skin
& a place for scars, the ridge of mangled flesh having healed
there’s a place for rage, the tearing of bark from a tree in winter
& a place for anger, the demand for splinters stuck in a fist
there’s a place for desire, the heat of fingers held tight
& there’s a place for forgiveness, the trail of a stained tear
there’s a place for remembering, the floor of a windowless room
& there’s a place for forgetting, the edges of teeth being broken
fragile but strong
as all newborns, something fragile, his limbs skitter, every movement as if stretching endlessly, muscle-stutter, his fingers grip imaginary angels by their feathertips, his mouth yawns, his head wobbles from side to side, looking-feeling, out of hunger, out of comfort-yearning, swaddled in new clothes, alien material this cotton, nothing like the womb, the freefall and cushion of warm liquid, but he has yet to cry out, we don’t let him, hovering over the playpen, the bassinet, the crib, like guardian giants tending to a lost lamb.
how do you stop this
how
do
you stop
this
maw
of
the past
&
threat
of
the future
overwhelmed
bringing one child into the world is dangerous enough
how to pass the navigational skills you’ve acquired
to recognize the sign posts of disaster and the edges of cliffs
and keep secret from them the disappointments you’ve collected
but two, to bring another, after you already feel that you’ve failed
as if by stacking the burden you can somehow break the tension
of another life you cannot hold gently in your hands
breathache
and i’d like to be believe that the ache in my breath is from all these cigarettes
not something i’ve passed to my daughter or son
the spinning of something out of nothing and seeing ghosts in the wind
where the sun collapses over the pressure of bloating
some festering that has always been my own
not a wound but pus that demands rupture exactly
the prying open of skin that does not know how to heal
the cessation of a street when it turns on a bend
as if sorrow traveled exclusively in the blood
pitching stakes in ground yet unclaimed
difficult kind treachery
it is difficult to be treacherous
and it is difficult to be kind
as if being one or another requires a difference
in consciousness, of turning
when they are both
inextricably linked
by desire & faith & an absence
of both
this smoke off your skin
in a matter of days have gone from a cig or two
to polishing a pack
old habits resurfacing and hopefully won’t be hard to kill
she says, “our son will be breathing this, this smoke off your skin”
and what do i say to that
having already bruised him in the womb