a depth you couldn’t
shake, vastness beyond boredom;
one glimpse and you’re sunk.
-
what are we even doing here?
maybe it's a hall pass
a gasoline can
a trapdoor.
maybe it's the thrill of collusion,
a firecracker that wouldn't light,
a pocketed twenty discovered years later.
maybe it's the zodiac (killer or birthchart, both are relevant in their way) or
an inside job or
an inside joke or
a nutcracker.
maybe they're portholes or periscopes, epigraphs, business cards,
flipbooks, cigars, a safety deposit box.
a stranger wordlessly giving up their seat on the tram,
a fiftieth floor railing that couldn't possibly pass inspection,
a traffic light that flashes yellow after midnight.
maybe their calls come from inside the house.
oh,
okay, sorry,
you just wanted an answer.
what is a poem?
well
a few are a thumb on your cheek.
they are all two fingers on your neck.
-
immersion.
another night of youth
wasted.
on the walk from the bars we kicked rocks and whined aloud
at the fickleness of our latest crushes. stewing over the injustice of it all.
my porchlight was tucked into the alley you'd continue down;
we'd reach it in a few more dark jokes,
wave, smile,
shout good wishes to the sound of my turning key.
i don't know who said something first;
i don't know if we said anything at all.
only that suddenly there was the flavor of your grin
the rough of five o'clock shadow pushing three am.
it was all so luxuriously simple,
so naturally unfussy -
we'd loved others before
we'd love again but for now
we were sticking middle fingers up and tongues out to Big Lonely.
fingertips swirling conspiratorially across thighs,
lips playing house against collarbones;
the assuaging breaths between bouts
hanging from the corners of the room, our canopy of relief.
there was the smallest sense of wrong in how right we blended,
stunning how we dissolved one another into puddles then giggles -
a spice i relished as i fancied myself recklessly daring.
i wasn't of course.
falsely audacious about everything,
i bet safe; i bet you.
because in even the smallest of things, you treasure - that's what i'd love about you
for years to come
as we each went about our lives, the easiest semisecret i've ever kept
(it was too fun to watch our friends' jaws drop, who could resist)
all of it
faded
so far into the distance now
nothing but depth patinaed into dark joke filled reunions.
-
cynthia william strang 1917
-
a prayer.
magic, the way the backseat bench can never quite hear what the front cab is saying.
we were packed into the car like sardines
fivefriendssuitcasesbackpackspurses
snacks held out, passed around, remnants scattered between us.
but i heard you
even on the diagonal
my knees propped against the drivers seat back
chuckling softly “we’re really livin’ now, eh?”felt you say it, more like,
same as the hush that falls when all the windows are rolled down.
never came up with a new term for that, did we?
what a legacy
those Oldsmobile knobs
hitching, always in the same two places, against the strain of leather siding
as if they actually coiled glass onto itself.
magic,
if you let yourself believe.
“sure seems that way” i said, distracted,
imagining the windows rolling so far the car transformed into a topless Wrangler;
the wind whipped wash of calm,
the inextricable undercurrent of terror.
the sudden awareness of how fast you are moving,
of how little there is to protect you;
the hesitant trust placed in every passing stranger,
the blanket of zen, however meager, that no matter what so much is outside of your control.
“oh shit! got it back!”
the satellite gods had finally found us weaving between the mountains,
rained their manna, databytes, reassurance we’d survive.
curiosity my well documented master, i pulled myself up
wrapped my arms around the driver headrest.
together we watched the map reload on the center console,
some fortunetelling talisman with a modern mouthpiece,
“for-ty – min-utes – to – des-tin-a-tion”
“oh. we’re halfway there.”
i met your rueful smile with a nose scrunch, my lips sealed against the crook of my right arm, longing suddenly
acutely
for the uncertainty of the last half hour;
the disorientation of feeling lost in varying degrees
already logged nostalgically as some mad adventure.my chin rested atop my elbow now.
“yeah, forty more.
and even that’ll take some luck.”
-
extroversion:
adj. affection for living in the tendrils of alternate lives; to have an active imagination
musée 