INDIANA
Threat of tornado, the long alarm. Worms crisscrossing
sidewalks, bodies bloated, pushed from their private
tunnels into the weep of the world—bright &
sudden. Ditches flooded make swimming
pools for children who don’t mind
the muck; untrimmed grass transforms
easily to reeds; my long, lithe body the body
of an otter as my teeth sink into the flesh
of a writhing fish. My little brother slipping in the slick
mud, laughter hysterical, unprovoked by anything but the raw cord
we’ve managed to grasp onto, a cord I later learn
to call joy, though back then it was nameless, & without
name, somehow less elusive. Never let it go,
I whisper to that version of myself, to that version of my brother,
but of course they do, already
I watch them turning towards the future, which splits
in two.
*
Fireflies in summer. The winding night drive
from my grandparents’ house. Long sticky nights no fan
could alleviate. Iced tea, smell of lemon. Family walks boxed in
by corn. Rows & rows of it. You could never
get free, no matter how far you walked.
*
I could go on & on about autumn; I was prone to romancing
its warm hues, the cold crunch. I loved the ache of it
& the ache grew. I grew
older & poured the feeling into a boy. Nights we drove aimlessly,
listening to Blonde on Blonde or Blood on the Tracks.
Or we sat on the hood of his car,
Miles Davis in the background, Neil Young, Willie Nelson—
the music prompting our hands, our hands expanding
our worlds. Stars lowering themselves
into the field, & a feeling I prefer to suppress,
but don’t. Tenderness welled up so strong I sang a song
to him in the dark, despite shame for my untrained voice. Sometimes still
I catch myself singing it. And remember what it felt like to love
simply, before knowledge, before understanding
what it was I let him do to me. And how the love was love
but also a baton I carried unknowingly through the dark:
someone said take this, and run,
& I did, but didn’t know where I was going, or why,
or why the weight grew so heavy when
it wasn’t even mine. I could try to explain
the strength it took to drop it. A love that was love,
but also a sentence I needed finally
to finish.
*
It was summer when I left that place, though it felt
like winter. Nothing living
for me there. Just ghosts, ghost &
more ghosts. Shadows & suggestions.
What might have been.
What wasn’t.