For a moment, I break through
whatever it is called. Birds bring it, drawn
with silver husk
sunflower seeds in a basket.
Explosives on the hillside opposite,
voices, cars, they don't matter. Call it
meniscus, skin, call it almond.
Call it glass—polish, it disappears.
What happens then
is the poverty toward which John Clare gestured:
love eating absence daily, compressed
to a green carpet in the throat.
Call it parentheses, alternate,
an other tradition. The glass turns fluid; a spiral
of my other life approaches. I'm live
over there, but night is blue, not black.
Crumbled balconies, damp air,
bread is free.
That other me has lost something,
wonders if I have it.
I'm dry as a corn husk. The barrier's
tightening like chain link. Basket swinging,
the birds departing, my other self
seems to wave
but her hands rise together and she plunges in.
As though a car I drove had kissed
the barrier and ricocheted away.
Meniscus: given distance,
parallel tracks converge.
If it’s gone
it’s probably still somewhere.
Maleea Acker is surrounded by signs she can’t interpret.
Published On: February 14, 2011
Permanent Location: http://www.forgetmagazine.com/110214b.htm
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