By Ben

A Quality of Light

As a child I played
in summer sunlight
running until I was told
it was dinner come inside.

After a few years of
school I knew to watch my back
before drinking from the fountain,
that I never got a deal
when I traded sandwiches at lunchtime,
that a python can swallow a deer,
that the earth orbits the sun.

At seventeen I drank heavily
slept until noon and walked
the traintracks at night
counting stars.

When it is evening now
in my small corner of the world
I wish that the sun returns tomorrow.
And lo these many years I have not
been disappointed, such is the power
of my desiring.


*****************************

Some kinds of stories

Coming down the road I meet
an old woman. And she's
really old, I mean she looks it,
but she's moving along.

I stop for some reason
as she passes by, but she too
stops so we are suddenly facing each other.

Opening her impossibly large purse
she tells me to reach inside.
I do so, tentatively,
the way we all do something unusual,
ignorance and fear running together
like cats whose tails are tied by string.

The darkness inside is cold and my hand
brushes against many foreign objects.
Finally I pull out a comb,
or was it a doll, or a thimble?

When I get home I recheck
my pockets and realize it was
the key to the far castle,
the cure for your sickness
O my beloved, it was
a light through the window
high up in the tower of my chest.


*****************************

The truth about evil

It is dark in the house and
us children are under the stairs
because of strange noises,
at first outside but now
in the kitchen and on the roof,
can they hear our breathing
even though we are mice?

It must be the demons
we've been warned about.

"with fangs" in a whisper or
"with hands like ice" or
Sssshhhhh!

When they find the secret doorway
and open it
and pull us out
they are very gentle.
Their sharp-toothed mouths say
that they love us very much.


*****************************

Unconscious Decoder Ring

In my dream there's a monster
eating sandwiches but they're
my friends, and he's grilling them.
The dipping sauce is pure evil,
but the worst part is I'm
getting hungry and I can't
find the keys to get out of the castle.
In my regular life I wait tables
although I mostly complain
about how little time I have,
wishing I lived on a Greek island
despite loving goats only in theory.
On sunny days I live forever
because beer is a preservative,
while in the rainy season I'm caked
in a fine blue mould.
It seems my heart is a projector and
these limbs have no secrets.
You can tell I'm aching
watch my fingers,
you can tell I'm lying
watch my lips.


*****************************

A lack of Contact

In old movies where people
move fast and have stone faces,
the street urchins see cake
the street dogs see sausage
through the thick glass of stores
in the parts of town they get chased from.

Behind a wall of glass
a hundred babies incubating
wait for the strength to be claimed.

The blue glow of televisions
washing the sidewalks on summer nights
behind half-drawn curtains.

After digging for miles and days
our shovels hit something hard.
We realize we've reached
the home we grew up in and it too
is sheathed in glass.

Looking around, how obvious!
Everyone is coated in the stuff,
our chests little greenhouses
with tiny shoots begging to meet,
only they're weak and we're scared.
In the dark it's cold,
everyone's untouchable bodies
burn like ice.


*****************************

The Story of Aging

When I was born my mother
clipped my first hairs and bathed them
in fresh milk for a week.
She mixed in dirt from our garden
to fashion a twin for me.

My twin and I played together
sharing one name and one heart.
It was only me that saw
his infidelities, but because we were
indistinguishable I decided
I would eat him up, and his absence
would go unnoticed.

So I did.
Every year that passes
my new friends say "happy birthday"
which makes it hard to smile graciously
and accept their congratulations
at surviving another tough year,
when I can hear in my stomach
the banging of little clay fists.


*****************************

Making Love to Virginia Woolf

We're fucking like twenty-year-olds
who don't care about infidelity or failure.
She's been reading to me from the diary
of Virginia Woolf. Long sentences
on looking for a form to hold
all of the human heart within.

She was long, and cool as
icewater in the scorching South
sweat running on the outside of the glass.
Only she's British, so make that
hot tea in the damp mists.

In either case moisture and relief,
the heart getting something of what it wants.
Like us now in our room
having forgotten the diary,
watching each other's eyes to see
who in the midst of all this wonder
is in control.

Our bodies, mine and hers,
they don't care.
They want to let go of the weight together and
float into clouds and dream.

Like Virginia Woolf looking for a new answer
even if it is miserable. Wanting the new
because at least it isn't what we have already.

But my mind, some time after,
is grabbing and flailing
for the earth it is falling toward
and will hit
sooner or later
and be a part of forever.