leah-wetterau - Hello Poetry

You falter, one foot dangling seamlessly in midair before dropping; the moment of the fall, the transcendence of it makes me wonder if I could go ahead; could I explode into a million glittering pieces and launch myself past the stars into the mass gyrating grave of four million suns? into a dark not even light can escape? Could I just suspend there, at the edge of the gyre, feeling my body lull into half-time. Could I watch, then, as the Earth spun in real-time, allowing me a very modest amount of years for life to settle; returning when the time is right. My body, compounding back into solid flesh, plunking back to Earth, just as I had left, a weeping puppet, and I’d pretend as if I’d been there all this time.

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Oct 29, 2012

Oct 29, 2012 at 12:16 PM UTC

leah-wetterau

Time Travel

You falter, one foot dangling seamlessly in midair before dropping; the moment of the fall, the transcendence of it makes me wonder if I could go ahead; could I explode into a million glittering pieces and launch myself past the stars into the mass gyrating grave of four million suns? into a dark not even light can escape? Could I just suspend there, at the edge of the gyre, feeling my body lull into half-time. Could I watch, then, as the Earth spun in real-time, allowing me a very modest amount of years for life to settle; returning when the time is right. My body, compounding back into solid flesh, plunking back to Earth, just as I had left, a weeping puppet, and I’d pretend as if I’d been there all this time.

48

As migrants from our own pious bodies, we held hands through pouring rain and ran from those things which hoped to keep us. We submerged ourselves deep into the Cuyahoga, letting the currents ease us away from our lives; her pacifism, something much more to learn from. We let the water glaze our skin with rich culture and vagrant God’s who’d settled along her banks. We thought it chance that life would become something much bigger than we’d planned. We designed skyscrapers to build with our hands as we’d tightrope across wire cables high over upper-Manhattan or someplace grandeur. We let our tears fall from rainclouds and hummed along to the soft music which played inside of us. Young nights grew into days as we learned how to use our youthful bodies as something more than for breathing and running. We read books for the promise of a greater tale-- maps for the promise of finding ourselves through the devilish hellfire of the Arizona desert. We thirsted for love and found it on park benches and back seats. We prayed to the Sun God’s that this summer would last an eternity.

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Oct 29, 2012

Oct 29, 2012 at 12:15 PM UTC

leah-wetterau

Wrath of Summer

As migrants from our own pious bodies, we held hands through pouring rain and ran from those things which hoped to keep us. We submerged ourselves deep into the Cuyahoga, letting the currents ease us away from our lives; her pacifism, something much more to learn from. We let the water glaze our skin with rich culture and vagrant God’s who’d settled along her banks. We thought it chance that life would become something much bigger than we’d planned. We designed skyscrapers to build with our hands as we’d tightrope across wire cables high over upper-Manhattan or someplace grandeur. We let our tears fall from rainclouds and hummed along to the soft music which played inside of us. Young nights grew into days as we learned how to use our youthful bodies as something more than for breathing and running. We read books for the promise of a greater tale-- maps for the promise of finding ourselves through the devilish hellfire of the Arizona desert. We thirsted for love and found it on park benches and back seats. We prayed to the Sun God’s that this summer would last an eternity.

24

It seems that we’ve come as far as ever -- a growing extinction of the great divide crowding itself and suffocating we’ve come all this way who are we to say that birds do not fly into the sun who are we to judge how any person can be in love-- for we, two souls, walk this Earth, hands pressed against our mouths to keep us from vomiting up our demons keep us from spitting up. it’s been too long and we’ve come too far to turn back and march again.

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Oct 29, 2012

Oct 29, 2012 at 12:13 PM UTC

leah-wetterau

The great divide

It seems that we’ve come as far as ever -- a growing extinction of the great divide crowding itself and suffocating we’ve come all this way who are we to say that birds do not fly into the sun who are we to judge how any person can be in love-- for we, two souls, walk this Earth, hands pressed against our mouths to keep us from vomiting up our demons keep us from spitting up. it’s been too long and we’ve come too far to turn back and march again.

30

My mother, small thick and sixty-two this year. I know her advice on daily measures resonates much deeper than I admit; always seeming to pry at that lone heart-string. Sometimes, when I am home alone, I go through her things; her old photographs, her high school yearbooks, her letters; and I read them. I imagine her this way: young, like me, and in love, married, driving a babyblue Volkswagen Beetle, telling of how it was the best car she ever drove; the American Dream. I like to think my mother was a pin-up girl instead; her peroxide hair glowing in the sun; the summer of 1971.

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Oct 29, 2012

Oct 29, 2012 at 12:12 PM UTC

leah-wetterau

1971

My mother, small thick and sixty-two this year. I know her advice on daily measures resonates much deeper than I admit; always seeming to pry at that lone heart-string. Sometimes, when I am home alone, I go through her things; her old photographs, her high school yearbooks, her letters; and I read them. I imagine her this way: young, like me, and in love, married, driving a babyblue Volkswagen Beetle, telling of how it was the best car she ever drove; the American Dream. I like to think my mother was a pin-up girl instead; her peroxide hair glowing in the sun; the summer of 1971.

29

I am from a Good Samaritan, a cesarian birth. I am from a green thumb, born into garden gloves; my mother’s leather hands. I am from Hyacinths and Begonias, from Chrysanthemums, and Black-eyed Susan’s. I am from the river, struggling against the white waters, her hands supporting my underside. I am from those summer evenings spent snatching fireflies from the stars; our cheeks glowing in their radiance. I am from the dirt beneath fingernails, the airless August sun, and a long day on the trowel. I am from pulled weeds, and those precious things blossomed and grown too soon.

0

Oct 29, 2012

Oct 29, 2012 at 12:12 PM UTC

leah-wetterau

I am from my mother

I am from a Good Samaritan, a cesarian birth. I am from a green thumb, born into garden gloves; my mother’s leather hands. I am from Hyacinths and Begonias, from Chrysanthemums, and Black-eyed Susan’s. I am from the river, struggling against the white waters, her hands supporting my underside. I am from those summer evenings spent snatching fireflies from the stars; our cheeks glowing in their radiance. I am from the dirt beneath fingernails, the airless August sun, and a long day on the trowel. I am from pulled weeds, and those precious things blossomed and grown too soon.

20

It was the night your hands lingered in the pockets of your coat. You didn’t reach out and touch me, didn’t offer a hand to say hello. You sipped from the flask in your pocket, told me how you really enjoyed the book, and that Kafka was one of the great theologians of our time. You pointed out constellations I couldn’t see, and talked about Dante like you’d been having lunch. You impressed me with your knowledge of what makes a grilled cheese good, and remembered that it was my favorite food. We drank dark beers, I let you tell me a story I had already heard. I laughed at it again, like it was new. Your cigarette hung from your mouth so effortlessly, I wanted to pluck it from between your lips, light it, and take a long drag. I wanted to lean out into the universe around us, interrupt space and take those cigarette lips into mine. I watched your hands ring around themselves, knuckles swollen and tight. A scar puckering the skin above your thumb-- We walked by the river, I asked if you like to swim. You laughed. Did you think I meant to do it now? Peel off my clothes one by one, hoist myself up on the ledge, creamy, unpuckered white skin glowing under the pale moon. I would have done it. I would have dived. Taken one small leap and sunk my lonely body in that mud; gritty and , the clay of the Earth clouding the water, soot settled down around me. I would have done it, I would have jumped if you only told me you liked to swim.

0

Nov 4, 2011

Nov 4, 2011 at 9:33 PM UTC

leah-wetterau

Pretty

It was the night your hands lingered in the pockets of your coat. You didn’t reach out and touch me, didn’t offer a hand to say hello. You sipped from the flask in your pocket, told me how you really enjoyed the book, and that Kafka was one of the great theologians of our time. You pointed out constellations I couldn’t see, and talked about Dante like you’d been having lunch. You impressed me with your knowledge of what makes a grilled cheese good, and remembered that it was my favorite food. We drank dark beers, I let you tell me a story I had already heard. I laughed at it again, like it was new. Your cigarette hung from your mouth so effortlessly, I wanted to pluck it from between your lips, light it, and take a long drag. I wanted to lean out into the universe around us, interrupt space and take those cigarette lips into mine. I watched your hands ring around themselves, knuckles swollen and tight. A scar puckering the skin above your thumb-- We walked by the river, I asked if you like to swim. You laughed. Did you think I meant to do it now? Peel off my clothes one by one, hoist myself up on the ledge, creamy, unpuckered white skin glowing under the pale moon. I would have done it. I would have dived. Taken one small leap and sunk my lonely body in that mud; gritty and , the clay of the Earth clouding the water, soot settled down around me. I would have done it, I would have jumped if you only told me you liked to swim.

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