I remember a sunrise,
when language
finally spun out and left
us in easy stillness.
We watched the green
canal awake with a
flicker and I inclined;
willing him to touch me
just once...
But so relieved
when he only smiled and
said,
"Goodnight starshine."
~
Jamie, with one hand on her
hip and a flip-flop in the
other, struck the best
mighty-black-woman pose
a little-white-girl could
muster and cried,
"Harmoni, I'm gonna get
the shoe on you!"
Laughing
until tears reflected on
our faces and our ribs
implored mercy.
Laughing,
because all the world
was laughter.
~
I remember a Gemini saying,
"I love you."
Words a mere breath, a flutter
winging across distance
and circumstance, to rest
on my ear.
I remember having faith
and, for the first time in
my life,
faith was okay.
~
Tim’s profile ate at
my eye, vampire pale under
a bloated blue moon.
There was silence as there
was always silence,
expanding and breathing, throbbing
against the walls of my thoughts.
Dawn begged entry as his arms
wrapped me safe, and he said,
“I have to get out of this town.”
The hush mocked me. My tongue
became a corpse in my mouth.
“And I don’t want to go alone,”
he concluded but his thoughts were
far away from me and his arms and
the bloated moon, a sinking vista.
The silence belonged to me and so
did this lie,
maybe a finer gift
for the moment
than the truth.
~
I remember kissing a Kentucky
boy at a retro party. Long hair,
pulled into a reckless ponytail
and dance moves to rival
John Travolta's.
He was sporting a glittering
Saturday Night Fever costume,
beaming at me, and whispering,
"But I'm gay."
I remember a sly smile saying,
"It's time to put that theory to the test."
~
Shawn with his secret grin and
his animated hands,
hiking in the Glades.
He said,
"You're going to need a stick."
Knowing everything, my natural
response was an arrogant,
"What for?"
He shrugged, raised one of his
fine brows.
Later, when I was up to my chest
in mud, swimming alongside
a crayfish,
missing one of my shoes,
he smiled brightly down at me,
his chocolate curls a halo in the
backlighting sun,
"That's what you needed the stick for."
He demonstrated how he used it to
gauge the depth of the muck.
But he didn’t hesitate to offer me
his clean hand.
~
I remember a Gemini’s whisper,
"I love you."
Words a vague breath,
spinning and soaring across
distance and circumstance,
to rest on my heart.
I remember believing.
~
I remember Ashton and me
driving to The Waffle House
after midnight.
There was a smashed motorcycle
on the highway ahead, emergency
lights washing across the windshield.
Ash grinned and said,
"I'm glad I brought this."
And he lit a joint.
Half an hour later,
still in the exact same spot,
The Beatles Twist and Shout came
on the radio and
I screeched my best version on Lennon’s
wild invitation to shake it baby now
and Ash bellowed ah
Ahhh
AHHH
and laughter became warm wine
dribbling down our chins
as the final chords and beats
and voices
pounded together in a final
triumphant roar,
dissolving us into a happy heap
suspended in a moment where
such songs never end and
someone is always shouting,
“Play it again, John!”
The smile in Ashton’s eyes
said exactly what I was thinking
as horns honked and sirens cried
in some other universe…
We didn't care if they never
cleared that road.
~
My voice made of iron,
I said to Phillip,
"There is no God."
I was sitting at the kitchen table
in our one-room apartment,
our first apartment,
naked and clinging to
a cup of coffee,
clinging to the only things
I could cling to with bitter
grief staining my lips.
He said,
"No?
Well, you're not alone, anyway."
I didn't know why it should matter
or if it did,
but I knew it was true and felt the
fact ride along to the tips of my toes.
I am not alone.
I wondered if that would always be true.
~
I remember a Gemini said,
"I love you."
Words a naked breath,
Sent to sail and glide across
distance and circumstance,
to quiet the shrill music of
my memories.
~
Chris’ hands shook as
he smoked and avoided my
gaze. We sat in inconsiderate
plastic seats in a visiting room
where drooling, mumbling
patients weren’t allowed lighters
or belts or shoe laces.
This was before…
Before Cindy Cyanide
received her formal invitation;
When Slappy Sleepinol seemed like
a decent date to dance him into
a bruised and dreaming garden.
I examined those hollow eyes
in slantwise glimpses;
seeking answers in the creases
of his forehead, in the stroke of
his long smoky exhale,
inquiring, finally, “Why? But why…”
Through the haze, he
caught my eye, held it firm, and said,
“There is no ‘why’. I’m sorry.”
~
Hallucinating madly with Jessi
at my side, walking
down deserted streets in the
middle of the night.
She took off her skirt and put
it on her head. Became a Native
princess, headdress rising
from her brow,
spreading long down her naked back.
We continued walking, she
wearing nothing but a smile
and her *******.
The stars painted a melting
map over our heads
and the road home was endless.
We were children and in that
immaculate moment, I knew
and I was glad.
~
And then there was
a Gemini.
And then there were dreams.
This poem can be found in Venus Laughs, a collection of poetry from Harmoni McGlothlin, available at GraceNotesBooks.com.
