I am enlightened, a man says after dinner, and he doesn't mean what you think he means, he means he's a product of the Enlightenment, he's talking over his pain in the abyss inside his gum, it's called an abscess (we actually call it that, he's taken painkillers, he's swallowed them with the wine offered him). * Hawks in the trees. Men talking about philosophy. Lemon julienned over the chicken turning colors in an adequate oven. Good times, for a minute. The argument about the correct use of the word surveillance falls over my body. * The first time, I drank a beer and hated it. The second, I craved sugar water the colors of Gone with the Wind, the third, I just saw everything disappear. Most men say they would give birth if they could. * The crossroads. What you bring there to bury. The journey. Constant circling back, later at night, and in darker weather. Terrible to lose touch with your friends. Forgive the metaphor that defends. The usual becomes treacherous. In the dream, all of them had children and lived together in the same house where it was always Halloween, decked with pumpkins and ghosts. * I could try to be scared but not afraid. Looking into the chicken coop like a wolf. * Days late, I could see a snake moving across the surface of the lake, writing its path, unwriting the path it did not take. But it wasn't to be, that time. The effort made towards what I wished. * You climbed the mountain with me, a recovering moralist. You wanted to stay on the path, I wanted to find it. Copyright © 2017 Katie Peterson. Used with permission of the author. |
0 comments:
Post a Comment