Where Are We?
the lightning is approaching,
I can see it enveloping the town,
canon fire beyond the trees,
the flash revealing form
only for an instant,
a warzone panorama,
the bruised sky,
the electric breath of god making a home, here
in the middle of everything,
the haze of liquid dust
hangs over the green fields,
the corn,
the silo,
the feeding ticks
I told you before
the time means something,
I told you,
it carries you,
before I left,
to other visions and vantages,
whether time together
or time apart
it doesn’t matter,
both move and have weight,
both distend and erase,
I know you’ve felt as I do,
have felt many times in fact,
what life am I in?
where are we,
who was that, who said that,
how long does it take
before each part and parcel,
once single and central,
are finally effaced?
her green eyes are
brown eyes
are blue eyes
are flecked with the same gold, painted
was it Kansas or Virginia or Ohio,
the place you left,
Manhattan or Harrisonburg or Cinci,
the place you’ll return,
was it you who said that?
you who spoke of Spanish revolutions?
of speaking in tongues?
had boyfriends with guns in their trunks?
or was it someone else?
I met a girl who said that everyone she’s ever cared about
seems so far away, a girl whose great aunt is dying,
I met a girl who said she’s been reading from a script for far too long,
who described the insecurity of multiple partners as a
lonely life, a life devoid of continuity and understanding,
whose older brother became a Californian and now she wants
to follow too,
I met a girl who said she’d felt like she’d never been loved,
whose parents are recently divorced and who is unprecious
with her tattooed skin but is certainly precious with her heart,
I see all of them in every girl I’ve ever loved,
I see all of them in you,
I see some of you in all of them
how many years can pass by before the
return is no longer a homecoming?
how many beating hearts can
shatter,
how many acts and days and hands can fold
before we pass each other
on the street
without a gesture?
to miss a birthday,
to miss tradition,
to lose the name you gave me,
where does it go?
I cannot hold these things alone,
as much as I try
unceasing time,
quite alive,
takes the rest,
a little bit every day
I missed you meeting
the daughter of your brother, your only brother.
in the picture of you holding her, healthy,
you look like you might be crying.
I’ve seen that tearful smiling face before.
I wondered if you thought,
gazing, amazed,
of your own childhood,
of giving this new life something you did not receive,
something you wanted
the thunder is here now,
the violent country is sleeping,
hangers on are getting drunk at the zoo down the street,
I thought I knew the deflection of time,
how it slows and rewrites,
untouched graffiti can take your breath away,
unbroken conversations in lonely college hallways
from years ago past
with misunderstood older girls,
their hair dyed green,
spoken under the same storms and
warm Midwest nights like these,
they still creep in,
they still surprise,
so long as the architecture doesn’t die,
I thought I knew the shape of time,
expanding and contracting,
a ribcage mighty to destroy,
I never learned that the flash reveals only one side,
the width of your single vantage,
I never learned that all of it could go away,
without keepers
without words
without stories,
without will and defiance,
without little questions
and simple kind reminders,
the time still means something,
spent good or spent bad,
dead or alive,
the exchange stays the same
to share it again,
I don’t know,
to what place
would it possibly carry us?
the hard rain is here,
the plicking droplets are hot,
reminding me of something
I can’t remember what
Weird Catastrophe by Kody Cava is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
