may stop
beyond narrow
form
the need is
too long
and aching
My weary eyes glisten in the morning’s attempt at first light
I can’t explain how I see you in the ink-blotted night that lingers beyond its welcome
Presence and absence deceive my senses
Imagined shadows
Phantom embrace
Sandpaper tongue
Muted breaths
Wilting flowers
You roll from your back to your stomach
Too full of sleep to know that your body is a mechanized roller
that cranks like a handspun printing press to steal paper
thin sheets from me throughout the night
A chilly breeze floats along my skin in the pre-dawn hours
with you beside me is enough
I sit on the floor
of their dim living room,
tray and paper plate full
of pizza before me–
the kind covered in good
stretchy cartoon cheese.
My whole family watches a movie
about dinosaurs, my grandfather
inert on a chair behind me,
and his walker, tennis ball-bottomed,
bumps against my back.
He is big and ogrelike, old
to my toddler eyes, though
I will later learn he is only in his fifties
when he dies. It’s his disease
that makes his toes contort,
twist angrily into odd positions,
kind of like mine will someday,
so I’ll get scared
whenever my foot cramps, worry
that maybe I have it too.
More immediately my grandmother
stoops, dutifully
uncrosses the warped digits
while he grumbles at her
and Herbie the beagle scarfs
her unattended slice.
Even now
she has a loud, happy laugh,
and that’s all I remember.
I waited for rescue until like a stoned kitten
the sun pawed over the horizon. I learned that ice weasels
come out at night. Buckaroo, I was panic
stricken. I still struggle like a drowning
man to retrieve my strength. Is there any safety
for me now? Must I yank these shards
of ice out, needle by needle? My chestnut,
my little wonder, your daddy taught me love
is a snowmobile darting across the tundra. At first
his touches were like a suede glove. The moon’s
shadow, a penumbra. Then came his death
like a rough shove. You’re such a pipsqueak,
but still, my innocent pumpkin face, I must
tell you your daddy taught me that honor & life
are not certain. Then his damned snowmobile
flipped & everything was mottled bruises – geranium
red, black & blue – crusted slashes & closed
eyelids. He left me pinned underneath,
the tracks spinning.
I offered you midnight, the stars guiding the sheep,
leading the straw wagons into dawn
into the cold, early spring blooming wallflowers.
If you look at these, it is I for you.
What you liked for me—
marshmallowy sugar mint of the caresses of the sea
and the healing incense coming to be,
if you look at these, it is I for you my dear.
Author: Rafael Alberti
Translator: Manny Grimaldi
