Nine a.m.:
I woke up first to the itching on my chest and legs, tossed
and turned a while before grabbing hand lotion, smearing giant globs
over the offending spots. Tried to sleep a bit more, couldn't for the
rush of wind in the tree outside, leftover from last night. It's been
a slow, cold spring ,ominous and dark.
I open my eyes to the picture of her I put up last night. Her, sixteen
and so fucking beautiful. Seven years now. She's mine, still. After
everything else. Losing touch, seeing other people, broken hearts,
failed relationships, bad girlfriends and bad boyfriends,
cohabitation. And then friends over the years, the creeping
realization that maybe I'd blown it, missed my shot. Confessions and
rejections, jealousy and good times, dancing and picnics and dumpster
diving and movies. Sleeping together but never sleeping together,
until finally, one night a kiss in bed and the best relationship
either of us has ever been in?
The tree blows, still, outside, hard and violent. I think of cyclones,
the dream I had: the storm coming over the hill, and nowhere to turn
except away, running for any shelter that would have me. That day in
the park, last summer. We'd spent two days together the month before
my ex would move east for half a bitter year. And when we hugged
goodbye, when I said I couldn't come back to her place, it was fear
that said no, my dogged sense of loyalty, and fidelity. The knowing
too that maybe she could be my shelter, but I wasn't ready to run, not
yet.
I told her my dream yesterday, sat listening, patient as she tried to
explain weather patterns, something about temperature and vacuums. The
spinning earth. semantic differences between cyclones and hurricanes.
Tornadoes.
Charles Imbelli
2008
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Patrick
Patrick talks about his mining days. Bo, he says, was a crusty old miner, addicted to methadone, booze and cough syrup--he dropped a sack of pigs heads once, trapped by a steel door slamming shut in Manhattan, spilled heads out of black plastic bag they rolled all over the street him there between the door and the sidewalk watching them tumble helplessly their leather glazed eyes in frantic circles. Should hear him tell the story.
Patrick drove from Kansas to Washington, his wife, son, and boxes of jewelry packed into a yellow old Toyota, the seats roof and truck full, a hippie grapes of wrath pouring in new oil every 50 miles, car plugging away, up over hills and i think of i think i can i think i can i think. He set up shop outside my house, pieces spread over two tables. We talked there under tall pines looking out over the fort, the beach. He tells me about Bo, and New York.
I mention Deposit, his eyes squinting he licks at wrinkled mouth corners and pulls at his grey. “Can’t feature where that is. Some beautiful country, there upstate. Didn’t know how close you were to the city.”
I knew that city--every street, sewer and park. Didn’t think too much of upstate until now, thousands of miles away, far as possible really and how I miss it--the mountains and leaves and streams. A different time. Where I can smell the changing seasons and keep on waiting for an autumn light that doesn’t come.
Charles Imbelli
2007
Patrick drove from Kansas to Washington, his wife, son, and boxes of jewelry packed into a yellow old Toyota, the seats roof and truck full, a hippie grapes of wrath pouring in new oil every 50 miles, car plugging away, up over hills and i think of i think i can i think i can i think. He set up shop outside my house, pieces spread over two tables. We talked there under tall pines looking out over the fort, the beach. He tells me about Bo, and New York.
I mention Deposit, his eyes squinting he licks at wrinkled mouth corners and pulls at his grey. “Can’t feature where that is. Some beautiful country, there upstate. Didn’t know how close you were to the city.”
I knew that city--every street, sewer and park. Didn’t think too much of upstate until now, thousands of miles away, far as possible really and how I miss it--the mountains and leaves and streams. A different time. Where I can smell the changing seasons and keep on waiting for an autumn light that doesn’t come.
Charles Imbelli
2007
Monday, November 15, 2010
the proposal
the hare krishna tree
in the foreground,
nine years later.
the tree to the left,
mounded dirt,
remnants of mulch.
it’s the height of summer.
same day.
same place.
dusk.
there is a woman,
unlike the girl nine years before,
a man, unlike that boy,
and no music but the constant drone
of cicadas in somewhere trees.
the grass holds so many--
they find little pockets,
away from one another.
and outside, on benches,
men with tatoos on the edges of their eyes,
swirling down necks and chins,
down arms to wrists and fingers.
we went to that dark place,
expecting joy and finding truth.
we went there,
but for the grace of--
we went, not a part of,
a place that time had taken from us,
a place where dusk had fallen,
would fall forever,
but not here--
and found ourselves outside,
one knee and shining fingers
entwined beneath some other tree,
our nine year kiss complete.
Charles Imbelli 2010
in the foreground,
nine years later.
the tree to the left,
mounded dirt,
remnants of mulch.
it’s the height of summer.
same day.
same place.
dusk.
there is a woman,
unlike the girl nine years before,
a man, unlike that boy,
and no music but the constant drone
of cicadas in somewhere trees.
the grass holds so many--
they find little pockets,
away from one another.
and outside, on benches,
men with tatoos on the edges of their eyes,
swirling down necks and chins,
down arms to wrists and fingers.
we went to that dark place,
expecting joy and finding truth.
we went there,
but for the grace of--
we went, not a part of,
a place that time had taken from us,
a place where dusk had fallen,
would fall forever,
but not here--
and found ourselves outside,
one knee and shining fingers
entwined beneath some other tree,
our nine year kiss complete.
Charles Imbelli 2010
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