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: internals
thoughts, musings, life, etc
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.
return to dreaming
how to go back to the dream, dreaming, as if it never happened, no wounds to heal, no mountain to climb, no bare feet cut along the rocks, no fingernails cracked desperate, where i was this rock, this point of arrival, this steady pace of the sun, a sure gravity of place, instead of this alien shifting sand, this thing i do not recognize in the mirror, this stain, i touch the glass and i feel nothing, i touch myself and i feel nothing, i touch her and all i feel is pain, i touch my children and i feel the skin of a heart that should still be beating, i touch the walls and i feel the regret of no longer belonging to any of it.
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
6:13am, 7lbs 2oz
welcome to this mad mad world. be kind to it.
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
contractions, hard and soft
they had begun the night before, as they had last week: contractions hard and soft, not quite steady. she gets an old mickey mouse watch we picked up when we were in florida with the little one last year. mine was already lost and abandoned, still ticking in a drawer somewhere in the den. she notes the time they begin and their duration. looking for rhythm, for a narrowing. sometimes ten minutes part, sometimes seven, then not for an hour or so. but she calls the doctor anyway, can we be squeezed in. late in the afternoon we go.
they strap the fetal heart monitor around her swollen belly, a seat belt over a skinned basketball. they give her a silver little handle with a button at its top and a cord that unwinds back to the machine. the baby’s heart beats mad as he muscles his way around her womb. its a seismograph of delivery, correlating baby’s heart to her contractions. after ten minutes or so, the doctor pops in, gets her in stirrups, snaps on some rubber gloves, and peeks underneath the tissue paper wrapped around her legs and hips.
she shakes her head, snaps off the gloves, “uh-uh. not yet ready yet. you’re not due until the ninth you know, but,” she shrugs, “you never know.” she looks at me and then back to her, “it’s your second one, so he might just pop out.”
any day now, literally any minute.