Read Sixfold Poetry Winter 2014 Page 8


              our pharmacist

              and a young father.

  We pretended the spirit was

              heart failure,

              stroke,

              alcohol.

  But we knew better.

  Our bodies recognized

              the taste

              of this spirit’s bitter breath;

  our bones itched

              as he scraped

              at our cornerstones.

  People gathered in the streets,

               just to cry.

  Air too thick to—

  We’re not there.

  Instead, at school, miles away.

  A friend from home messaged us:

               I feel like electricity is surging through the air.

  My mother calls:

               The Island can’t handle

               another tragedy this year.

  We’re all gone, but the spirit

  demanded intercessions anyway:

  tears thick as—

  We mourned that day like doom,

  like 9/11 or JFK.

  Did the town fathers meet

              to ask of each other

              what happened?

  Did they sense the spirit

              in the thick air—?

  Did they put away

              the gavel,

              the bible,

  and call on the old gods instead,

              buried for centuries in granite tombs?

  Did the spirit sit among them

              listening to his trial?

  Or did he pass beyond,

  going first through your home,

  leaving

              that stained fray of linoleum,

              that creak in the stair,

              that whimper from your sleeping brother?

  We still speak of it.

  Patriotism

  They came to make a map

  of my bedroom.

  Two men, bearded, solemn,

  with rolled up drafting paper

  and thick black markers.

  “You can stay seated on the bed”

  one told me, carefully sidestepping

  a pile of my laundry.

  Both pulled out tape measures;

  they measured everything:

  the average width of my books,

  the circumference of the bare lightbulb

  jutting from the wall,

  even the width between my feet,

  toes kneading the blue carpet.

  Then they set about drawing,

  boxes and squiggles abstracting

  the solids of my life,

  turning the djembe I carried

  from Uganda

  into a circle,

  the windows etched exes on the wall.

  They used a labeling language

  I could not discern.

  I had to pee,

  but one told me if I left,

  they would have to start

  all over again.

  Finally, hours later,

  they put the markers down,

  rolled up their papers,

  and shook my hand.

  They said the drawings

  would go to the Library of Congress

  and be indexed with

  the rest of my rooms.

  They called me a patriot,

  a citizen of the highest regard.

  Then they left,

  and their footprints

  faded into the abstract square

  of my carpet,

  labeled ‘F7’ in the secret manual

  all these men carry.

  Peacetime

  I.

  Four men appeared

  from the war.

  “Where should we meet?”

  they asked.

  “You will come to me

  in a long, thin room,”

  I responded,

  thinking of the hallway

  in the Rotary.

  “Will our mothers be there?”

  they asked.

  “No, they died, each,

  of heart failure,

  when they heard the news.”

  II.

  A man in Maine

  has been beating a drum

  continuously

  for four years.

  He says it is the heartbeat

  of the Earth.

  He has disciples who take turns

  on the drum

  in four hour shifts.

  He is squandering

  his inheritance.

  I hear they may move

  to a smaller house.

  I wonder how they will drum

  in the car;

  if they go over a bump,

  and the rhythm is interrupted,

  will the Earth wink out of existence?

  They must have

  a contingency plan.

  The End of His days

  And every ozone sundown burned a braver creation

  —Christian Wiman

  Revelations settles

  on the shoulders

  of the blooming congregation.

  Little eyes expecting

  endings, wondering

  at my cassock, at my

  collar. Fear,

  dear hearts,

  in their little eyes.

  For fear of what?

  I let my brain

  glide noiselessly

  through the waterveins

  of this bleeding Earth.

  There is, hidden in smog,

  destruction; fires

  in homes of sand and stone

  gut the lonely

  mothers;

  wives ask

  another god

  for his tongue

  back. I rake

  my fingers

  through my brain,

  explaining how a discarded

  Book is alive,

  blood-spilled and hand

  prints all over the margins.

  Man’s thoughts smolder

  of creation, embryos

  swimming through rivers

  of caution-tape into

  a mother’s waiting delta.

  God turns bright red

  and America’s Lazarus, dead again,

  (he was Kennedy,

  he was Lincoln)

  pretends

  that his infinite

  devotion to the notion

  of one nation,

  under God,

  can raise him up.

  My boat is drifting

  through dusk.

  My lambs are waiting

  for slaughter,

  for new life.

  I ask

  the third grader

  what God wants

  us to confess.

  She, blest, imparts

  intimately a

  wisdom far beyond

  her years.

  I hear angels sing

  praises: her God is near-

  the end of His days.

  A. Sgroi

  Sore Soles

  Dark are the clouds above the dancer’s head—

                Wilting are the tulips in their backyard beds.

  Biting is the breeze that whispers at her back—

                Forgotten are the books that she pushed into a stack.

  Ruined are her stockings, with a run at both the knees—

                Aching is her back and the bottoms of her feet.

  Narrow, long, and winding is the road she walks—


                Alone is the girl inside the music box.

  Exsanguination

  By the time I broke his heart

  Mine had already begun to crumble.

  Doubt came knocking,

  Erosion spread.

  There was now geological proof,

  A history in the dust.

  His heart suffered a swift, sharp slice

  That bled quickly, and with fury.

  Exsanguination of the soul.

  Mine had fallen prey to a quiet disease.

  A sickness, slow to show the symptoms.

  It crept in, infecting every kiss and conversation.

  Debilitation from deep within.

  I lied to myself and to him.

  I lied to my skin and to my hands.

  I killed the animal that we were

  And its blood dripped from my fingers.

  Roadkill that we politely halved

  And strapped to each other’s backs,

  Agreeing to share the stench.

  We stretched and dried the skin,

  Dumped the innards in the river to wash away.

  The last task we did together.

  Our heartbreak, in its collective sense

  Will wash up on some other beach,

  But the blood still stains my hands.

  Three summers have come and gone,

  And no amount of scrubbing

  Can rinse my skin of the damage I’ve done.

  I still smell it when I close my eyes.

  By the time I broke his heart,

  Mine was deeply flawed at its core.

  Cracks ran through it from end to end.

  There is no fixing a flaw like that.

  Reprisal

  my sister took her name back

  from inside his mouth where he was keeping it.

  it perched on his tongue far too long.

  a foolish place to keep a name,

  a room whose door will not remain closed.

  my sister took her name back

  from under his bed where he kicked it,

  left to collect dust until he wanted it again.

  a foolish place to keep a name,

  a space without walls to speak of.

  my sister took her name back

  when he left it on the train

  and only realized the error

  when turning out his pockets for the wash.

  anonymity is a sweet, fresh breath.

  he will know her not a moment longer.

  Autumn, buried

  Brooklyn is still sleeping

  Early morning in October.

  Wide awake and weeping

  We are solemn, shattered, sober.

  What happened so few hours ago

  Is etched into our skin.

  Too late to tell the artist ‘no’,

  Tattoo ink sinking in.

  Brooklyn’s still asleep

  As we avoid each other’s eyes.

  Sunlight starts to creep

  As we prepare to say goodbye.

                  Goodbye to the love and goodbye to the friend.

                  Goodbye to the fall and the never-again.

  Depths

  You lead me to a place where the mud is deep

  And no one can see us.

  Leaves become sieves to the sun and its waning warmth.

  For miles, we creep along

  And pick up rocks, and feathers.

  Remnants of the land we walk.

  We traipse like this as the light winds away.

  The fog within the forest depths is just that: deep.

  The air drips with sound atop a bed of silence.

  We say things we otherwise wouldn’t,

  We see things we otherwise couldn’t.

  There is nothing to be done,

  No one calling our names.

  The scent of pine saturates our noses

  And rests behind our eyes.

  Mine share their color with the bottomless dirt

  And the grass that flecks the surface.

  Yours are like the storm clouds we don’t think will reach us—

  —They do, and we are soaked.

  Cotton clings, hanging on for dear life.

  We reject its advances and peel off our layers,

  Thinning suddenly under patches of moonlight.

  I am cold and you are chilly. I am drained and you are weary.

  We walk until we reach the lean-to,

  A relic of our childhoods surviving well beyond its years.

  A patch of dry wood awaits—

  —We think it somewhat miraculous.

  Just enough room for both of our bodies and both of our souls.

  By morning, the damp is lifting.

  It threatens to return and we do not doubt it.

  I want to grab hold of these hours

  And put them in a pocket.

  The one within my chest,

  Where everything I stow inside is doomed to rot forever.

  The decay will take as long as my life.

  Our clothes have almost dried,

  Just as before, only now

  They hold the scent of rain.

  Everything is different, yet we are both the same.

  Miguel Coronado

  Body-Poem

  i.

  my body is a poem

  it sings, reverberating as a tuning fork

  reverb               vibrates melodic

               as a buzzing swarm

  of lightning bugs;

  as in a thunderstorm,

  the bugs and frogs come out

  to make the world

  a damp and sticky place

  for us.

  ii.

  my body is a poem

  about my city in the rain, covered in fog

  covered            just like a child

               under a great mountain

  of blankets, white as death;

  I was always afraid of winter,

  how it roared

  & crept up,

  covering

  my shoulders

  in its fog.

  iii.

  my body is a poem

  that had trouble sleeping last night, & woke up

  startled             by the rustling of bells

               & the subtle click

  of a door closing;

  the way a funeral proceeds,

  culminating in the closing

  of the earth, the subtle

  clink of a shovel

  finishing.

  Adventures of a Lost Soul

               When I was young,

  I fashioned a small halo out of hollow stars,

  Insect husks and the love of my grandfather

  In the rustic shadows of farms

  I explored in search of a reason,

  Any reason at all to continue exploring

               Once,

  I led an inquisition in my

  Grandfather’s backyard

  Against an insect insurgency

               Swatting mosquitos in droves

               & capturing buzzing bee drones

               & chasing centipedes away

               & banging on wooden nests

               & watching the clover mites

                            bleed out in a frenzied splatter

               of bright

  red—

               I ran away—

               Afraid.

               Today, I know

  Clover mites are harmless little bloodbugs,

  And I’ve long since quit the inquisition,

  But I sti
ll explore for the same reasons:

               The incentive to keep exploring;

               & so I wear my halo like a badge

               & set on out in search of home,

  The place I lost, so long ago,

  When I left those forsaken farms.

  The Kiosk

  red light kisses a neon tavern;

  a block away, a bum ambles into the night

  his body silhouetted hungry red, a ghost.

  he rolls a shopping cart,

  filled beyond the brim

  with plastic

               (transparent

                                         bones)

  he’ll cash them all in

  for coins—he’ll recycle his life

  at a kiosk.

  The Sound of Distant Explosions

  I am sound

  emitting

  as rocketfire—

  distance

  is drowned out

  by a bonfire

  in the night,

  the hungry city

  pulls the stars down

  to earth with

  skyscraping

  razor-sharp

  desperation

  I eat sound

  & sleep sound,

               quietly fortifying

               my body-fortress

               to perfection; this vessel

               for my mind and spirit.

  Tempus Fugit

  i.

  in time, you will see

  the glowing shell of day shed

  into the evening.

  (two lovers stroll along an esplanade,

  hand in hand in secret hand of another

  secret lover, the moon, peeking out

  from a curtain of grey clouds.)

  ii.

  in time, you will know

  how doors unfold into death,

  how curtains cartwheel

  light into a room

  but also darkness—and why

  windows wane away.

  (farther down along the river,

  an old man falls in love

  with the coy moon—

  he gazes politely, not wanting

  to strip apart her innocence.)

  iii.

  in time, you will be

  gone as memory in a

  holocaust of thought.

  (a slow cloud obscures thought,

  and the old man, weary of love,

  bows his head ever so slightly