Self Portrait

1.
The people I have
met, we were all told.

Once you find what lets you forget,
the thing able to take you,
blooming to make all else gray,

do that thing
for the rest of your life.

You can be,
our parents repeated,
whatever you want to be.


2.
Spring, beaten
within an inch of its life,
is rescued.

The people
are out again.

Some dedicating their time,
their lives,
to the control
of a ball. To the study
of that most true
of symmetries,
born of man
and gravity:
as ravishing,
impartial.

Many more dedicate their time,
their lives,
to the act of watching
those remarkable few
(whose abilities must plateau
for loathing and mercy)
so they may imagine
what it must do to a man
to make such love,
to have such final say
in the way of things
man can never have say.

Still, the control
has become so great.


3.
Summertime.
My father blindfolds my mother,
tells her not yet… not yet…

finally the tired fabric falls,
three stories of red brick
climbing up from where it rests.

The sky, blue and fresh
as her last name
blinds her for no more
than a moment

and he’s unlocking
the door.


4.
Despite what they may say,
I can’t be far
from what my parents prayed for
those early screaming nights

The mornings they spent
breaking ice
from the toilets
while the rats slept late,

tucked beneath
the blankets of my crib.

I have no memory of them
chewing the nipples
off my bottle.

No,
I am close.
I dedicate my time,
my life,
to the study of the feeling instead.