Issue Four: Coming October 1
Lucky
to be standing under August overcast—
to be staring out past row after row
of boneyard markers in that broken, country
necropolis. Listen to: the sound of my father’s feet
crunching gravel as we walked through the fence
—the one that wound around the potter’s field.
When I found my monument, I searched the surface
for a fragment of my reflection that made sense. I traced
every silk-string fracture in the windshield’s
shattered galaxy—sole creation of my braincase.
The old man passed me a cigarette,
but let me set it on fire all on my own.
With the free hand, my fingers read
a zigzag account across my forehead; sewn
in black brail. I unstitched the thread,
and unzipped the body bag I had on layaway.
I didn’t understand how so many dead leaves
could find their way into the front seat.
Before my eyes slid under the damp shade
of each lid, I looked over in time to consider
an overturned tire, filled with parasitic
rain water—a snake turning laps inside.
There is a different story in the darkness
behind burgundy curtains. Where the velvet
undertow takes me, I can see a girl—feel lips
waking me like one wakes a baby. She’ll get used
to the grotesque idea of me being the one
between the two who makes the bruises.
She pictured: a clandestine place where the sun
comes crawling over her shoulder at dawn—a place
where the current flowing through her terrace window
breaths life into sheer fabric—white drapes lifting in slow
motion as they drift above her face, always
& forever. In truth, morning was no more
than a dim transition from night to
gauzy light—a murky setting on the outskirts
where phantom sheets blanket the fitful sleep
of field mice, and windmills haven’t worked
for ages. Drowsy mourning doves, perched
along barbed wire were frightened into flight
by the thunder of dual exhaust under my Camaro.
With a wheel in my fist, I tore down a narrow
back road—the demonic engine of my big car screaming
a hymn while we cut a wake through tides
of fog sweeping over the cornstalk-lined countryside.
As I chased the gray wail of air raid sirens,
a black mansion tuned into view—
the dwelling silhouetted against
an empty, panoramic movie screen.
I discovered her waiting in the shadow
of her basement confessional,
where she invites me inside and whispers,
Show me black boots laced with straightjacket twine;
skeleton keys etched with cryptic designs.
3 years later I will find a picture
of my little brother and I as children, playing
barefoot next to a 55 Chevy—the once ferocious
machine cries rusty tears as she tries to explain
(in vain) why she was abandoned. The photo shows us
in grass-stained clothes—our sunburned flesh & bloody
knees begging for the sting of tetanus. Both of us
appear too tough to smile—or maybe we just weren’t ready.
I promise, I will not tear this one up.
----
Lemonade Stand in the Graveyard
This place, some may say, is a bad place for this kind of stand.
Bad for business I guess, what with the headstones and snails
slinking over marble markers out here in the boneyard.
Nothing special about this booth—planks from abandoned
pirate ships held together with a jar full of nails. Old bristles
dipped in black lacquer and broom handles to support my sign.
Beginning with those yellow egg-shaped fruit—peeling back
their waxy skin (almost reptilian) for some juice. Dissolve
the sugar. Dilute with water. Stir. My stand was inspired
by a child—her campaign. In the end she had no pain. In the end
she was 8 (inside dwelling on that indelible design—the way
that singular character is shaped). Years ago Our class passed
this location on a field trip en route to an antediluvian museum.
We learned about scurvy—Barlow’s disease. Primates (it turns out)
Are no longer able to produce Vitamin C due to lost genetic
information. Lately a few have been a little critical—too much
citric acid burning up their guts—too bitter. Some feel compelled
to spit it out to prove their point. Typically complaints
come from those with prison cell grins or firecrackers stuffed
in their eye sockets. Some are so desperate to take a homemade
drink they don’t regard where they are (the graveyard) they make
the mistake of falling
—arms outstretched, into one of those freshly dug pockets
and I usually don’t see them again. For now I am content,
especially in the morning after the small hours ebb—
when dawn yawns across the cemetery’s cobwebbed carpet.
It’s not so awful when there is a lack of traffic in The Acre
because I have Grandma to keep me company.
----
What if
What if the voice of God sounds like the voice
of the narrator echoing inside
an empty theater over in a forgotten wing
of the museum? Maybe the vacancy
is due to the lack of traffic on such a sleepy
Sunday afternoon. Who knows
what images that ancient reel-to-reel
might be pitching through the dark—
The Grand Canyon, Lewis & Clark,
long-faced effigies made of volcanic rock.
Deep sea aquatic life like goblin sharks.
Hagfish, perhaps, prowling betwixt
the organ-pipe ribcage of a fallen baleen whale
—eel-like creatures gliding
from miles & miles around
to consume the decomposing cathedral
now settled miles & miles down
along the sandy wasteland,
feeding, waiting, getting bigger.
----
The Mortician’s Flower Bed
It certainly is a hot one today,
I say to my neighbor as he kneels down
beside his home, clutching a little brown
bag—the sun’s brutal persistence beating across his gray
and black pin-striped back. I can’t see his face
now, or what he is doing down on the ground.
I like to think he’s planting seeds in all the right places,
gently patting each little mound.