nyerp

negative space

I am at ease in the transitions,

in the twilights and the dawns,

the moments in between the x and the y;

as though I am only alive in limbo,

in the undefined.

I am, perhaps, at ease in the margins,

in the spaces between: when night has shed its nocturne,

but the day demurs, uncertain, biting her thumb;

or the sun has set and the world is open and raw,

the fingers of evening stroking at its neck.

the light shifts gently, incrementally,

lovers slowly pulling off clothes,

the sunshine slipping like a robe to the floor.

and so the world is naked but untouched, briefly,

an empty canvas.

into this I can place myself.

the unmapped and the nebulous --

a framework.

the last of the sun dripping through the trees.

I stretch out my hand: it spills though, spreading,

amorphous, patternless, pondlike.

in the year of the fish

I am drawn to bodies of water.

the Atlantic insinuating itself into my childhood, --

and here I pause, wistful, at Lake Michigan.

I am drawn to vastness, into which I can place myself,

a drop of something, an insignificance.

the water moves with mathematical precision.

cross-legged, sand grating in my toes,

I watch its turbulence, impotent: content.

there is comfort in a null direction:

no, as you turn to the east, you cannot go that way.

your life is a constant chain of currents;

floating on your back in the undulating tides.

you are obsessed with the horizon:

the juxtapositions --

in my head are the oceans and the rivers,

a maelstrom, a sucking into the depths.

and I am here, still;

on my back in the water,

drifting towards the horizon in the pull of the tides.

in discord

the lake is grumbling, restless.

the wind promised it a storm,

teasing the waves into a frenzy,

whispers of thunder and rain,

then shut the door like a spiteful wife,

strolling away at its crescendo.

now the lake is sullen and growling,

hurling angry waves against the shore;

even the seagulls have fled their perches on the rocks,

flocking uncertainly on the inland grass.

the wind is mocking the water:

she climbs along the shoreline,

gusting between the trees, laughing in the banks,

a frustrated roar behind as she slips away.

she weaves through the shabby shops,

advertisements of kites and bikes, paddleboats,

sending bright swathes of fabric swirling through the sky.

it is early spring, and cold;

I watch the flags and the kites, their promises,

the colors doubled over in the wind and the rain.

asleep at the end of the world

I dream of autumn falling in Japan,

inchoate cold, decay in gold and red;

these dying months in unfamiliar land.

asleep under the willows in the sand,

the cherry blossom springs are my head

but I dream of autumn falling in Japan.

you fold a yellow leaf into my hand;

it crumbles to a breath of dust instead:

these dying months in unfamiliar land.

one day, you say, we'll go there when we can,

I watch the changing colors from my bed

and dream of autumn falling in Japan.

the sky has lost its shine, grown pale and wan,

and heavy with the things we leave unsaid,

like dying months in unfamiliar land.

October steals into our room at dawn,

she whispers of the dreams we've drawn and bled.

now I dream of autumn falling in Japan:

these dying months, an unfamiliar land.

White Bear Lake circa 1988

I remember crabapples,

in the pale soft grass, so unlike

these sharp-bladed swaths of lawn, sand-pocked and spiked with thorns.

I had crouched beneath the tree in the creeping twilight,

picking up the fruits one by one,

like figurines, reproductions in miniature.

I remember: I held each one with reverence,

running small thumbs over its dull perfect skin,

as unfamiliar as the grass, the twilight,

the dryness of the air.

And I remember, as I bit into one, then another,

the disbelief of the bitterness on my tongue,

throwing each aside and trying the next;

the swell of discontent, the search for sweetness;

the growing pile of crabapples, left to rot in dying sun.