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UNDERGROUND VOICES: POETRY - 09/2012
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ALLY MALINENKO Crash It was like that moment, when you turned to smile and I saw your mouth make out the words that said that this was a fine night, the kind of night we both needed, except you didn’t say that. You didn’t get that far before the impact. It is like that. Except for when it isn’t. It is like that only on repeat, so that these moments are always being miscarried and laid in a basket at the edge of the woods. Little tiny half babies, so horribly incomplete. They are missing mouths. Or eyes. Or bodies. I say at night that I have run out of stories to tell and then it occurs to me, that you are sleeping. It is like that. The way we are missing each other. Except it is also not like that, except for when it is, all the time. There is cold but there is no snow. And already the days are getting longer like this year can’t wait to get itself over with. It is like that. But also not like that. She woke up in the hospital and must have wondered where all that time went, eaten like bread, passed from one relative to another who gathered at her bed. But she is not thankful. They tell her about God. But she is not thankful. It is like that. Except it is also not like that, except for when it is, all the time. During the Hurricane During the hurricane, there were tornadoes and just before, an earthquake. Nothing major just a tremor, a shudder in the sleep of a planet suddenly chilled in deep space. We wonder what next? Locusts? Plagues? Has it been so long since the last swath of disease, bounced lighter than air down our throat, warping our blood, changing our lives, permanently? In the end, we flip the light to make sure. We turn the handle on the faucet, we flush the toilet. We want to make sure that the life we lived when we went to sleep is still the life we wake to when night has passed, when the hurricane has passed, tiptoeing through lower Brooklyn, leaving only a few downed trees, like giants felled, across the lawns of the very rich and the very prosperous. I tell you it could have been worse and you nod and shrug, kicking at fat twigs shaken loose during the night of the hurricane, a night when I slept, fitfully my head on your chest, dreaming of water, too much black water, and an octopus that wouldn’t let go. This is how we pass the days, now, stepping from one disaster to another, narrowly missing true tragedy but I wonder how much longer can we go on? How much longer, my friends, can we last? Ally Malinenko writes stories and poems and even a novel and occasionally gets them published. Her second book of poetry entitled Crashing to Earth is forthcoming form Tainted Coffee Press. She can be found at allymalinenko.com blathering on. |
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© 2004-2012 Underground Voices |
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