Stranger. Adam Clay
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the words apart
and determine what a grin can be.
I’m not suggesting that grace deserves
a particular place in the world.
I’m suggesting that limitations
are rarely deserved by those
who impose them. Absence deserves
more. You said waterlillies
when I’m pretty sure you meant
something else, perhaps something
more distant. The sky was tinged
the color of a hangover that day,
and I knew better how to talk
to myself than to you. And then somehow
it’s Tuesday again
and a school bus speeds down
our street between the parked cars
like some kind
of generous distraction from
whatever mundane thing
was hanging over everything else.
Maybe that word was empire? Perhaps
you were hoping or desiring
a bottle to place this house
(like a ship) into? I’m
hearing one thing
and speaking another. My
shirts aren’t pressed. Hell,
they aren’t even clean
and their colors
have run elsewhere.
In my mind, I see them bounce
on the laundry line
and wonder why.
I didn’t understand what you meant
at the time, but it made sense
when I saw not a single bird in the woods.
The climate dissolved overnight
and you couldn’t have been more disinterested.
A squelched fire hangs in the air
and in the memory
for years to come. It’s a terrible thing
when we stop
and consider how having enough
means something
different from even a year ago. Think
of a swallow flying
from one tree to the next
and think of something from your own
life that runs parallel
to the experience of the first tree. There’s
nothing. It’s afternoon all of a sudden.
It’s afternoon? If it is
it’s a weird one, a place unfit for a poet
but not a place
unfit for other people
who calmly disregard
everything but winter
in a terrifying way. An idea
along the edge of a season
means much more. An idea
is one born from nothing
and destined to tunnel
its way into a hole meant
for a creature or for air seeking
out a place as only air does.
Overwhelmed? That’s only half
of it. You can replace me
if you like. You can look
straight into a mirror and feel frantic all without me.
When I say idea, I mean content.
If you thought this was both the ending
and beginning of things,
you were wrong. It’s all up
in the air, all past, future,
and present at once. One thing is certain:
we can’t see past
speaking, and if we could,
it would only be a thread.
Don’t Look Back
It isn’t clear why one would want to see
the source of a river, but perhaps
stepping across the headwaters
amounts to something memorable.
This does not take into account
the fact that our memories only reflect
the moment we find ourselves in. Tomorrow
it’s a distant sense of dread, but today
it’s too normal for even
the news. Each day is a fit of beginnings,
and each day is determined to replace
the next. Too long we’ve been silent
on matters best left in the past,
and I keep forgetting each
righteous fact began as a trembling one.
Exhibit A
Would it be enough to suggest
the smoke from across the hill
suggests a type of life or a type of living?
I’d like to be stranger than I’ve been.
One bite taken from an apple and left
in the yard for an animal
to scavenge. Could this be a day
or any day? I’d like to think so.
I’d like to think there’s something
to be said for closeness
to death, as if nearly leaving this world
can color our existence in a particular way
or another. I miss you, we might say
to ourselves in those moments,
but those moments lumber ahead
without us where another person
is making copies, sipping the last bit of coffee
for a day going,
a day already half-gone. I miss you,
we might say to each other in those moments,
as if repetition can be a way of
or even a minor attempt at remembering.
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