Saturday, December 21, 2019

THE UPTAKE OF GOING DOWN


Rivers run
through the cracks on my mirror.
Black spaces between dreams
have been taken hostage
by reality's sideshows.
Once we wore baby powder,
and now we smell from time's stamp.
Not that it hasn't been fun;
playing hide 'n seek with myself
required courage
and the blessing
of stupidity; seeking
what I couldn't see; listening
for that half note
that made sense...
like the foreignness
of my family's dinner table
when I was too young
to understand what war was
let alone how
to negotiate a truce.

Flowers call to the sun,
but I'm no longer a flower.
Instead, I'm the petals falling
"with a dying grace," mocks my awkardness,
and "so softly as to not make a sound,"
rebukes my moans
as I prepare
for what might not be:
a dress rehearsal.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2019

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