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December 4, 2017

3 Poems

Edmund Sandoval

In the Featureless Dawn

We built a fire in the woods/thunder was in the distance/we could taste rain falling miles away/I leaned into your embrace in the open kitchen standing among the drywall scrap and broken plaster/the crinkle suck of thick plastic hanging where walls once stood/safe/I could feel small in your largeness/and did/and cried into your chest/and felt your sadness/your pity for me/When I wake in the featureless dawn/the sexless morning/I put my ear to your chest to listen to the kitten beat of your heart to feel calm/tethered/moored/able to view the smooth wet cut of listless bank after the tide has retreated/We drove into the mountains not fully knowing each other/we spoke of our future/what a glory it would be/could be/is/then walked in the brown grass/breathed the undernourished air/slept and woke and parted then met again and then/everything/and then/all/I'd be okay with your death/I imagine how I'd feel how I would cry then go dizzy with relief and what/then get drunk/then dig a hole in the wood floor/and bury you there/in make believe/I'd light a candle to suggest a feeling of sadness/in passing/There you are kneeling on the bridge/the forest below/the trees and their sorrow at their leaves preparing to leap from their branches/I can see you drying into husk/into cinder/waiting for wind to blow you away/into leaves/my mouth/my lungs/Like you/I did not go to the bar and later wake in unknown rooms/and walk to the train in the tired hot humid morning/the sun limp as your hair/Like you/I did not joke and tried to say so and felt only miserable/with my hand on the top of your thigh/In the morning before the sun but with the sky weak and visible we woke cold and separate clinging for warmth the blanket spread thin as frost at the beginning of a hard autumn day

 

I Experienced Touching

Look I said: how about this:
how about I tell you I cheated
on you too: and now we're
even: and can go back to being
happy: or at least quiet: she said:
what: she said: explain: so I said:
before I met you: and after:
I experienced touching: I said
the same as I did to you: but that’s
not the same: is it: I shook my
head no: and made a muscle in the mirror:
I said: you’re right: it’s not: and said:
I can see you shaking garlic cloves:
in a jam jar: and smiling when
they shed their skins: like wool overcoats.

 

Like a Lord Under the Breeze of Waving Palms

Is there ever a time to think of poetry? Of poets? Of the rivers of the delta? There are no Pyramids in Southern Illinois. Yet, Cairo. She called. She came over. The glasses were warm, the drinks. There wasn't any ice. We put the glasses aside, settled them in the floor, foot of the bed. After a time, we got up. We weren't tired. We watched the sunset from the bedroom window. We had another and talked about air conditioning. We talked about anything. Forests. Myanmar. The animal kingdom. Charismatic megafauna. Affairs. The rough and rush and tumble. The windows were open and bugs flailed against the screens. Dust heaped at the corners in gray fuzzy clouds. I thought of driving in my father's car in the summer and basking in the air like a lord under the breeze of waving palms. We seemed always to be driving south. We never walked anywhere. Such luxury and expanse. She said she was hungry. She said she was almost drunk. I opened a bag of corn chips and we shared them sitting on the edge of the bed. I put on my shorts. The sun filtered down. The windows of the city filled with light. The curtains suffused with damp color, shifted slightly with the weak efforts of the fan. Covered cough of wind. It is good to speak. I told you of my favorite poem. The one where everything is on fire. The world, the trees, the wolves and spiders, ourselves. Yes, you said.