The Middle Distance
Inside yesterday,
we walked
through a skeleton forest.
The sun burned the sky to
halfway between winter and spring,
and we wanted to melt
into the earth,
then bloom back to being
some months later
as crocuses or tulips.
Instead we took
several thousand steps,
until we stood on the edge
of the frozen lake.
Halfway between young and old,
we heard clear water
trickle through cracking ice,
and wondered how far
we could venture
before the sheet of glass collapsed.
Hawks and sea gulls
circled from clouds,
searching for small creatures
scurrying in the woods.
A rotting fish glistened
on the snow-covered beach,
and we winced at the harshness
of a nature so cruel,
so bent on that terrible balance,
halfway between life and death.
We stood silent,
hesitant to move
forward or back,
reluctant to become
predator or prey.
Two points on a map
halfway between misery and bliss,
we turned
and headed back
to where we came from.
A Shipwreck
We are floating in the middle
of a vast ocean,
aboard a derelict vessel
headed straight for the rocks.
We have travelled from the past
to reach the future,
or perhaps it’s the other way around.
Time is a construct,
and it’s difficult to think
in linear terms
when waves crash
incessantly against us.
The ship is obliterated
like a smashed porcelain doll,
the crew separates,
adrift and flailing.
I swim to shore,
an unlikely survivor,
and forage
for some unknown thing.
I open my mouth to call out,
but a stream of water
pours from my throat,
and a glittering orange fish
lands in the sand.
He blinks and tells me
that I swallowed him whole
while I’d been submerged,
that I drew him in
to my own body of water.
A solemn wonder
descends over the island,
and I understand we exist
on the inside of a tear.
I place the creature
in the shallow crests,
and he darts about my ankles.
Tells me of secrets
from the depths of the sea,
of wonders of the stars
overheard by his avian friends
the pelicans, herons and gulls.
Instinct impels me to eat the fish.
Or to hold him in my hands
and keep him always,
like some pirate’s favored treasure.
I settle on watching
as his bright scales race to the horizon,
slicing sunlight in his wake.
Back on the beach
I hover at the edge of a dark jungle,
precognitive warnings
of poisonous snakes
and great wild cats
ride on the wind.
My limbs solidify
and root down through the mire,
burrowing to find purchase
until I lose my breath.
In a daze I travel
from sleep to wakefulness,
or perhaps it’s the other way around.
Reality is an illusion,
and it’s impossible to think
in dimensional terms
when shifting
between myriad states
of existence.
In My Hometown, We Had a Scene
We were the musicians,
the writers,
the artists.
We smoked and drank
and talked all night
about making it big,
we stapled hand-drawn posters
to telephone poles,
and lied about our age
to play gigs in dive bars.
We attended poetry readings
in the upper rooms
of downtown thrift shops,
then loitered in alleyways
discussing summer festivals.
We ripped up our clothes
and dyed our hair
all the colours
of the rainbow,
but there wasn’t enough
room in the sky
for all us stars.
One by one
we crashed down to earth
to work in factories
and hair salons
and offices,
to get married
and to get divorced,
to lose ourselves
and each other
in our lives,
and if I could meet up
with the girl I was then,
if I could run into her
standing with her friends
at the bus stop,
guitar strapped to her back
and certainty stamped
on her painted lips,
I don’t think she’d believe
what has become of us all.