hadn’t thought of dying for 93 days
but the counter’s back at 0
while waiting at the stoplight
“how easy it would be
to accelerate into the half-frozen river”
I both wanted it and did not want it,
the idea like kettle corn at the fair,
so crunchy and sweet, excessive,
so soon stale
I used to believe in
spring creatures that flew
The butterflies and larks
that carried me to you.
But in the autumn of life
I lost that desire
Of wing against wing,
melodies upon highwire.
Because you had left me,
now just marrow and cinder
On streetlamp I wept,
eyes swollen, and tender.
Though now, in winter,
souls are huddled, collective
I dream once again, of
your memories, perspectives.
“Spread wide your form,
leap forth if you dare”
Your words just the same,
reassuring and fair.
Why was I filled with
such immeasurable sorrow?
Wasting what time remained,
a life unfit to borrow?
So I jump from on high,
putting trust in your words
And, summer-kissed once again,
soar alongside the birds.
the first time I saw you, you were far away,
a block or two—I knew it was you
through the spring snow haze
through the pink tint of the city-smog day
by the uncertainty in your walk,
that first date electric shock
Silurian conduit
Braiding the soil
Sightless, unseen
It would not know “light”
But wonders—
What of this strange fracture
This slight warmth
What is beyond it?
An “un-earthing” occurs
Or “ex-earthing” or “in-airing”
The nomenclature of inversion
In that moment, the worm learns that
“Lost” is a loneliness
It must learn these
Truths quicker than us
Its timeline torn, uncertain
It realizes:
“Lost” is cold stone
Primer gray
Writhing tides of endless ocean
Crests of laundry lint,
Gurgling drain
“Lost” is growing tired
Of coiling
Meaning from
Negation
“Lost” is slowness.
Stationariness.
Is dryness,
Is being
Buried in air
School children littered the asphalt, weaving through a
slalom of orange and yellow traffic cones, but there
beneath the calming shadow of the play-
ground oasis elder, sat a boy made of glass.
He wore a semicircle smile and hand-me-
downs found at the bottom of a garage sale free bin;
in his hand, clutched like the innocence of spring, a
bouquet of dandelions plucked from the Earth
stained his fingers with melted butter. He had
spent his recess alone with choosy eyes,
finding the perfect array for her, his Guinevere
of the swing set kingdom.
Now leaving the quiet whisper of the elder tree,
wanderlust abound, stealthily trips over
tire chips and deflated Juicy Juice boxes
to where she sat, perched atop the jungle gym.
His love is her memorystone, the one she clutches
like the feather of a robin, a delicate im-
balance between beauty and loss, the memory
she soaks into her roots, her branches.
He presented her the flowers, her balm of Gilead,
with his freckled cheeks turned toward heaven
and, for once, the past was itself
i.
the icelandic word
gluggaveður
loosely translates to
“window weather”
and how fitting
for that day
in early april
ii.
when a sinister shape
took my window, all
rook and malice,
primordial sound-terror
echolalia caw, caw, aw
and perched on the
plateau of my garage —
iii.
•scanning, scanning•
buttonblack were his eyes,
obsidian
and carrioncrazed!
the raven slid his talons
pianist-like across the shingles
The drive home is a rabies shot, agitated,
you twitch from state line to county line
to places in between,
the coordinates slipstream daydreams —
You remember the road numbers:
145th, 194th
impossibly lengthy, made of pulverized
bonemeal and crunch coat,
those steel-cut graveled byways
You remember the inhabitants
rendered from bacon fat and ham hock
tourniquets and night shift salt licks
Or those pubertied boys and their
percussion kits behind the old band shell,
blasting canonfire flams back there
on Thursday nights, before the
sweating, stinking performance
of pops classics, patriotica,
the flags swatting the air,
or was that the yellowed sheet
music, free from clothespin
bondage?
outside the world is screaming
for water. Life is bursting—flowers climactic, orgasm-
ic things, their petals dripping, gooey with plant blood.
the air is holding a cloth to my face
covered in atmosphere
it’s the end of all things,
the birth of all things.
my feet kick stones that are wetter than the grass,
slick with memory of forgotten riverbeds.
i have known the sorrow of these friends,
the gnawing behind the eyes that can’t be diagnosed.
i’m being torn in half like a split pine log
drowning sap, spineless lifeform.
high heat is labor incarnate.
the door opens and out I spill
afterbirth born from eyesockets torn,
rendered unconscious by warmth.
the end of all
the birth of all
picked apart by the vultures at dawn
the yardsale ladies size me up
with their price-guns and brooched breasts
the spine is a horrible thing to waste.
brave little toaster cries crumbs &
sidewalk lines like calendar kisses *&*
my brain is an intestine that can solve math problems.
end all
birth of
Image credit: https://flic.kr/p/TcpJMW (licensed under Public Domain)
Trent McMahon 