Lament

Lament

There is no water here. There is no knife.

There is no wing, shuffling. There is no daydreaming that pricks. There is no man, or woman, or hand that reaches to the far grave. There is no grave. I am not dead.

I am not left.

I am not departed yet. I am not worshipping, or meditating, or martyring.

I am not twisting hair locks around my fingers. I am not knowing how to drive cars, or ride in them, or have persons open doors for me. I am not remembering faces I have touched nor eyelids closing, though I am remembering.

Here is some remembering.

Here is some remembering of bracings, runnings, and tumblings unwise. Here is some tasting of boys’ thumbs, girls’ nipples, dry pills, wooden spoons, batteries, razor blades, electrolytes.

Here is some lingering thing that falls out of me when I open a bottle, a book, my mouth to cry.

There is no soda drink here. There is no bite.

There is only time, pushing onward.

Like orchids, that rise upwards, to erect, to gorge, to not be dead.

Though thoroughly reaching, striving, to give up their ghosts tonight.

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“Lament” was first published on Slink Chunk Press September 2016. This is its first time appearing here on this blog or anywhere else.