My hands are uglier every year.
My nails are rooted from their beds.
I would never lament a worn hammer, or vise;
a tool should work until its joints give way.
Time, the ghost of movement, was never the enemy;
only that time never rests, and I follow.
The void of time pulls my ear to the ground
so I don’t miss the hasty steps of tattered horsemen.
My hands, a weathered engine, grasping at my throat,
My body, a groaning machine, scattered over the earth.
There was never a question of my nomadic nature.
My mother might blame herself for the
stacks of National Geographics by the fireplace,
corners raw from my fingertips.
And father might well bear that burden,
as though he could push me away
without my fighting back.
Myself - though,
What is to pull from the vaults
of memories I dreamt
not to forget, but
dreamt to replace!
And what to not?
It’s all for naught.
The only hands that moved me
remain tight-gripped,
white-knuckled,
palms sweaty,
one at my throat
and the other maneuvering
strings (digging into my
wrists and ankles) stretched thin
across time zones with dexterous,
calloused fingers -
faceless, nameless,
but even so, voidless.
***
And what was left behind in the leaving?
The moist, green scent
of a soaked swamp,
my bare legs coated with
starved mosquitoes–
A sky dripping with
plummeting stars and
pouring boundless
constellations!–
The sting of the tropical sun
smelting us
in January
in October–
The roar of an ocean so powerful
it consumes the mosquitoes’
hum, the dripping stars, the
sky and earth aflame.
***
there’s something in me that hurts my heart, but
it is not my heart,
nor a tumor, or cyst,
waiting, and willing, to burst,
though perhaps, a tick, or
leech, or some
coward parasite,
clutching firmly, at my
sternum, that feeds on hope,
and dopamine.
John and I drove fast through
the hyperbolic hills leading
out of Madison.
We shared our futures over cigarettes
held precariously out of cracked windows
with frozen fingers.
The future assumes life inherently.
As the roads into Chicago turned to
thick, perilous slush, I still, god,
thought about death-
We thawed our fingertips and my nerves
wept as warm blood flowed over them.
The future assumes purgatory.
****
In the summer our skin
glows under heavy rays,
we are supple and dark
and warm to the touch
The sun sneaks up on us
and as April breathes deep
we’re dripping sweat
under our sweaters
In the winter our skin
falls brittle and cracks like
shattered, drifting lake tops, like
dry tinder poking out of a snow drift
