On a small hill grew a bullhorn rose.
It was making no pronouncements.
—
Beyond the hooded moon, the stars would not
unleash their light. My fingers
cold with summer could not button
my shirt. The fingers had been
imperiled. Jinxed.
—
No curtains hung
between where it happened and hadn’t. The man
I worked with looked at me,
shrewd. He’d seen
my dull face. His neck veins
tightened. He flipped
something grill-wise, said
I’ll kill him.
—
The absent-me wrung out
a rag, turning away from the sink,
away from the wall, flat
as a hand pressed over a mouth.
—It was air that had forced me down,
pinned me, heaved till I
became little of a self
with a little thought:
Check for blood regardless.
—
Flat in parking lot dirt I turned
for orientation, eye to eye
with something glinty—rim misshapen,
half-sunk metal. I could be
alive
only to flowers and birds,
the stricken
fields and fields and fields of them.
The human?
(could he be a he—a being—what he
did—undid—
what could be only
un-being)
—
Like air: memory
Memory: like air
I walk through and
disappear
—
It hangs and hangs and hangs—
not bell, not noose.
A case of walking paralysis.
A case of can’t-report.
—
Glance
at the shack, the tree. Nothing
looks back.
Knife-I-am-ready-
to-pull, are you ready
to gleam
in the lot
where I could not
scream?
Shock me past
the blacking out.
Shock me awake—
speak for the mouth-that-was-mine,
for the voice, triple-strapped
in its jacket, marching on.
from Daylily Called it a Dangerous MomentFind more by Alessandra Lynch at the library
Copyright © 2017 Alessandra Lynch
Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, LLC on behalf of Alice James Books.