I cannot say I am
or any conjugation
of to be, so I say
a withered archer draws
his bow, sets his sites
on a child camouflaged
in a gray beard, he lowers
his arm and lifts his finger
—only a cold hair’s distance
between the pointing
and the object—you little shit
thunder will erupt in your brow
you will twist in exile, get vulgar
and hard, after you bury your son
you will try to say he is or he will be
but presence and possibility
seizes your throat, wrings
you so goddam dry you have no
choice but to storm the gateway
crash the fence, throw yourself
on the salty mound, laugh and say
that is me, there I am
________________________
dVerse: Come and take a selfie!
Wow! The details in this... So vivid. Wow.
ReplyDeleteEmotionally intense as it tells your story. "presence and possibility seizes your throat" jumps out here. It's tough to selfie and you do it well. I feel like I know something important about you after reading it.
ReplyDeleteThis was hard to read, but honest writing can be. Good job.
ReplyDeleteWell, you took the prompt and ran with it. That image of the child hidden behind the beard, the hardening with time, the lost son - it's all gathered together so well in that ending. That is you. There you are.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for sharing this.
Breathtaking. So much pain and honesty. I am deeply moved by your self-portrait.
ReplyDeleteThis poem really touched me, especially the ‘child camouflaged
ReplyDeletein a gray beard’ cowering from the pointing finger and ‘you little shit’. So honest and so painful.
A beautiful and visceral write. We're all the sum of our life experiences and at the end, there we be, just as you say!
ReplyDeleteIntense!! Wow!
ReplyDeleteExceptionally powerful. Whew! Well done.
ReplyDeleteThis is heartwrenchingly beautiful!
ReplyDelete