FISSURE WHEEL

You’re having a memory, or maybe a dream,
or was it a commercial you saw?
Of this kid in photo-negative, a snap-shot
of diffused, uncertain radiance,
but with a slightly poisonous hint to him,
like an atomic blast was brewing
past the strict safety of the park benches;
a fissure of threat and blooming.

You’re thinking about this when your subway stop
comes up, when it’s your turn to get off.
Goddamn. Your day has just begun.

BLACK TRANSISTOR

My great aunt gave me a black
transistor radio with tarnished gold knobs. I fiddled with it, spooned in soft
voices from the heavy, lisping tides of static.
I let it play quiet with candles burning while I lay in the bathtub and touched myself
for the first time to Barry Manilow.

They found her with music still playing low,
from the looming walnut wall console; a symphony station.
Face down in dark-stained roses of the carpet,
white lace doilies on polished tabletops still
hanging limp and dustless, windows shut.
I didn't want to play her radio after that, or hear the same song she might have heard
the music of the roses as she knelt down into them.

PARTIAL ECLIPSE

How I can darken like a stain
back to that same boy, full of tremors and uneven growth.
How the hurdles of third-grade race
fell like thrusting skulls behind me.
How I clambered the rope for yearbook photos.
How I hung there, burning, a wick seeking its end.

RIND

How I set my arm upon you
and it ripens
like the slow yellow smoke of pollution choking under its’ own weight.

How I’m still left with what I’m hiding;
a dirty-curbed snow angel,
a mismatched address, a botched serum, an escape.

DRAWN

In the hushed and forgiving silence
after a snow fall, distant voices
sound like they’re right in your ear;
they ride from shoal to shoal.
Even the abandoned, graffiti-glyphed public swimming pool can seem
like an inverted cathedral, a bowl of hope. The street lights saucer out, the sky
is mute with mist. But I know
the constellations still burn above.
One of them an archer, bow drawn,
eyes on his prey, and his arrow never to hit.
We pulled him that way out of the sky, stitch by stitch. Trillions of miles drawn
in one hushed breath.

WITNESS

In rows, windows across the street flicker out,
their slow flames, their steady yellow notes fading.

Something goes dark in me.

But if I wait long enough, until morning,
I know those lights will come on again.

It's that simple, paying witness to the living.

MY LITTLE TURNKEY

You hold the key.

I check my watch. 2 minutes to Lights Out.
We make some small talk; the weather, the movies,
which latest starlet we’d like to fornicate with.

You say, the tattoo on my right forearm
is actually a hieroglyph, tying me to a proud
lineage of pre-Columbian warrior kings.
I say, Nice pitch. Try again.

You say, It’s really about my mother,
my real mother, the woman I’ve never met.
I say, Can you even read my right forearm? And just like that, the tattoo is gone.

You smile, a little abashed.
Time’s up. Lights Out.
You get up, gently close the door behind you.

Turn the key.

I’m under your watch, but I’m watching
you leave, down the long, scalloped
shadow play of the corridor, a light bulb
just starting to flicker out overhead.

I go to say something, but I realize
you’ve taken my tongue with you,
a mute and indefensible talisman
carefully folded inside a clean, white towel.