To Roland
We are absorbed
like stars consumed by the sky.
Sand under your feet,
it smelled of youth
and before
of fear,
of an embrace in frantic streets
where people were running for cover
and you covered my ears.
Sulphuric was the smell of my childhood.
A vacant stadium,
a wall of bags,
a storm spun of running,
and stars we were.
When the roads unfolded
we deflowered the city
one corner at a time.
You held my hand and told me,
“This is the city of my grandfather,”
and I inhaled it so I won’t forget.
You lit the church in candles
and walked the line of an old song,
a hokey dream you wrote on sand
and then watched retraced.
The tree where we once stood
twisted in the heat of abandon;
the rooftops drizzled that humid night
and shed, like an old hairdo,
the folds of what we were
and were to be.
I stand here and hold you
in a crumpled box upstairs,
remnants of glitter under your eyes,
pieces of the sun stuck under our nails
like splinters of the cross.
Is my hair clogging the drain
when you shed at night?
Is my smell still stuck under your skin?
Is the beginning of it all suddenly tasting
like the end of days
when all was one
and bubbles spewed forth from our eyes?
We are absorbed
like stars consumed by the sky.
Sand under your feet,
it smelled of youth
and before
of fear,
of an embrace in frantic streets
where people were running for cover
and you covered my ears.
Sulphuric was the smell of my childhood.
A vacant stadium,
a wall of bags,
a storm spun of running,
and stars we were.
When the roads unfolded
we deflowered the city
one corner at a time.
You held my hand and told me,
“This is the city of my grandfather,”
and I inhaled it so I won’t forget.
You lit the church in candles
and walked the line of an old song,
a hokey dream you wrote on sand
and then watched retraced.
The tree where we once stood
twisted in the heat of abandon;
the rooftops drizzled that humid night
and shed, like an old hairdo,
the folds of what we were
and were to be.
I stand here and hold you
in a crumpled box upstairs,
remnants of glitter under your eyes,
pieces of the sun stuck under our nails
like splinters of the cross.
Is my hair clogging the drain
when you shed at night?
Is my smell still stuck under your skin?
Is the beginning of it all suddenly tasting
like the end of days
when all was one
and bubbles spewed forth from our eyes?
2 comments:
Wonderful.
Brilliant.
The first four lines add not much to my faculties. I liked the four lines that follow because I could relate to them and could see what was going on, and then comes “Sulphuric was the smell of my childhood” which swept me off my feet and blew my mind off. I do not know what lingers exactly about it, but it is just a lovely sentence.
At “And stars we were” the shift in mood is very successful (I felt that this was 1992), and until “One corner at a time” I can see the whole narrative of your life then. By the time she holds your hand and tells you what the city is, “And I inhaled it so I won’t forget” comes in very powerful (good). I also liked “You lit the church in candles,” but the five lines that follow it simply do not penetrate me. What follows thence is nice, until “Remnants of glitter under your eyes” which is wonderful imagery. “Like splinters of the cross” is absolutely astounding, and I think of it as the highest peak in this poem. I also especially loved the three lines that followed, patriciously weak and delicate as they are. Even what remains is quite pleasant.
I loved this poem.
...I keep forgetting how "big"we used to be...and how magic it all was. Time made the glitter turn to sand in my eyes. Somehow I fear glitter now....somehow I loathe glitter:... Sand is more real. it is dull, sad, but wouldn't fade. but you keep making me remember...and I then I start to dream again...I am blessed, and so touched.. love . me
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