On Midlife: A Self-Portrait
A new gulley, a deep, unbending arroyo runs alongside what has always been,
an expected line in an unmapped valley, hidden in the shadow of my cheek
at odds with the other brushstrokes I have collected gazing into the sun,
fitting squarely on the oval of my face, as if sketched out with someone
else’s pen, long before my lips would kiss the abrupt winter of dead
flesh, long before my own throat would choke on the cinder block
silence of two ripening babies, inside me, revolting against the
harsh darkness of their mother’s body, long before I would
agree to meet myself for coffee without lugging along his
oppressive grip—indeed, a million midnight paces, bare
foot and creaky, chiseled themselves into this familial,
female downstream gulf where dusty clumps of
forgotten breath, wedged firmly in our jaws,
undamned themselves, unloaded their
weighty packs, dripping and pooling
into a puddle of clear spring rain,
free to envisage, to unveil
a freshly imagined
reflection
Neither Here
I am that last watery half-breath before sinking
into the sound, I am fogged-up mask
and the jostle of salty black slaps to the mouth.
I am the sputtering sting of neon, elbows
chafed and pressed into peeling Formica, sticky
with residue of late-night secrets, I am the burnt,
unwanted bits of our shared fries, a hazy film
of days-old grease clinging to your tongue.
I am plowing through our dropped pin, ignoring
shouts of bright cobalt from every angle—exit,
turn around, unlose myself. I am making Christmas
lists in July. I am pressing all the buttons, hoping
one will be the one that blocks the brutality of a bright
side, rewinds the welt already pooling between my bones.
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