Janus Finally Contemplates the Act of Being Present
I’m standing in a graveyard &/or at the end of a long, dark road.
The ash-swept trees are barren &/or budding, pendulous &/or rigid.
The time is uncertain. There’s a sense that so much life has passed &/or
so much of it will follow. Through distant silhouettes, the horizon is visible.
A pinkish &/or fiery hue washes over the sky. The sun’s great, smelt skull
is vanishing &/or just beginning to arrive. Will I go backward &/or
persist in this direction? At my feet are many stones etched with names
I don’t recall. The earth seems swollen &/or pregnant with life. How
it shifts, gently, to accommodate the armadillo &/or star-nosed mole
in their ambitions, built upon &/or within the constellations of bone.
I feel my sins have been forgiven &/or forgotten. Is this possible? I am here
&/or I am elsewhere. The present is a dream from which I can’t wake up.
Distance
It’s only now, eight years later,
I consider that my grandpa—
a man who was almost an astronaut—
quite possibly knew what he was doing
on the Zoom call. It’s true, his best days
were behind him. He would go on
about the marvels of smart phone technology,
before repeatedly threatening to buy one,
as if a salesmen from Verizon was listening
in through the speaker. He still remembered
street names, Sinatra trivia, how to tie a clove hitch.
He sent letters on all of our birthdays.
It was painful to watch. Sitting in my car,
beside my six-month-pregnant wife, saying
I’m sorry, I’m sorry, it’s just so inconvenient.
How could we have known, when booking
the tickets to Chicago, that one week prior,
Grandma would die in her sleep?
This was our baby moon. I mean,
it was the last time we could travel before
our life would irrevocably change.
There was a spot on the shore of Lake Michigan
where, if you looked out from the beach,
if the wind was still, blue would stretch on
to infinity. & my grandpa was there,
on the other side, looking left & right,
as if listening to a voice he didn’t recognize,
waving, like he didn’t even know me.
One Day
You wake up to a bolt of lightning
as your son. You wake up & he’s asleep
inside a cloud. You wake up
& he’s the color of exhaust, shaved clean
with electricity. I guess it doesn’t happen
exactly like that, not quite so suddenly.
But you remember, reaching out
for Earth, how sparks flew from his eyes.
Now, he rumbles to the kitchen, rumbles
to his car. He coughs & coughs & coughs.
It’s like there’s always been more to him
waiting just outside the window. Multitudes
of flash & fanfare, of roof-trembling scribbles
splintering the night.
One day, he sails off while you are sleeping.
You grow to hate blue skies, the sun.
You curse every summer day.
& then, you wake up to a crash
that nearly throws you from the bed.
You wake up to the softest pattering.
