On the Seawalla community gallery of new writing, art and commentary hosted by Ron Slate

Often

 

 

I’ve swum myself across

though no combination of gases exists

to form a transport system — I wash myself ashore

though no roots to grab — there is no footing.

What call this place? I can tell you

 

what I hear and see to help you name it for me:

everything, everything at once

the right and left apparent, but above / below

confuse — there are beacons, though —

the provisions store at the edge of weedy Twin Lakes —

 

Connecticut?  The estate’s carriage house (now rented out,

brown shingled, green shuttered to the main house’s granite), almost

familiar. But not constant is the busy gas station, sometimes

where the dock should be, sometimes blocking road’s median.

Always the post office is boarded up. I have the impression

 

of being led. And senses, of course, serve as memory —

the tartness of friend Jane’s autumn pie breezes into my nose.

Oh, and there’s much compression too, difficult to breathe

but expansion—joyous lungsfull of pine and green pond scents.

Nowhere can be reached and while my feet should swell

 

and bleed from trying,  I cannot see or feel them quite,

though believe them near, where they should be, attached,

but to what?          I think I am not here.

 

 

*     *     *     *     *

 

 

The way out is to forget

 

 

you haven’t a sense of direction, that you

walk circles to find your own kitchen

in your own dear house. The way out, then,

is to look down at your feet and command them

to shuffle forward, and to be patient for the moment

the moon’s pull will fully take over for you.

You will look down to see a puddle

of black-dressed mourners become a smudge

weeping less (it is clear to you) for your gone-ness

than for themselves — you know this now

that you have finally found the way out

and you even understand why for many, really for most,

you barely wept, the tears there were being for your own life’s

circlings closer to that moon, if not beyond —

 

 

 

*     *     *     *     *

 

 

All I Float Past, and Below

 

 

During a neighborhood walk, the pharmacy’s an arm’s length reach —

lipsticks and opioids — I’m quick to avoid the alley running

alongside this moment, knife-lined and spit gobbed, corridor of cats

in heat, pee streams pooling, alley where the yeasty aromas

(moist warmth of cinnamon buns from the corner’s patisserie)

settle onto a cardboard row of starving mutts. Above, a couple

banging on the fire escape shouts down at me,

What you looking at, perv?

Or is that from inside my ear? I tell myself  I will wake

from this stenchy dream landing in  my bed of ruffles

but not yet as I paddle through my conjured  miseries.

I’m deep in a creek of sourdough, kneading loaves

for my head to rest upon. So, what’s your particular complaint?

shouts the alley —