midmarch, in which
we return to suburbia
"i hate the quiet places." - the velvet underground, "candy says"
my father has always been obsessed with things
that never sleep.
billions of pixels
bare down on me.
i awake doused in sunlight,
to the sound of still-fearless
children screaming
outside, propelled by
millipede legs, obsessive parents
overheavy, overstuffed.
the sky grows bigger here
than in pittsburgh--it chokes
the ground, blinds us all.
we have a neighbor
who is so fearful of fluoride
she only washes her hair
with perrier. i imagine
polyethylene dreams leaking into
the folds of her brain,
sharp deadly vanity failing her.
my father tells me
he likes how i am growing out
my hair, which i take to mean
he is sorry for burying his dreams.
i write about him. i try to sketch out his face
but it is too hard. there is a new line,
a new crease in some new corner
every time. i am reminded of the sagrada familia
in barcelona.
i wonder if they have drugs
for my father's face that are not derived from botulism.
we drive aimless in the hybrid,
trying not to feel guilty moving silent
through the fading streets.
we teeter on the precipice
of something and say nothing.
the spine of the sky
is a cellophane dream
we cannot break through;
spring is beginning
and we are trapped
in the boiler, knocked flat
by the weight of organization,
left to tumble from row to row
of houses, futile and stifled
even in the evergreen.
i am worried what we may discover
prying at the floorboards, what underlying
rot may make itself known as time crawls
forwards towards its silent, digitized defeat.
i breathe the carbon dust.
days tick by. time is far past
stale. i feel i am falling far too slow,
near too fast.
we become faded facsimiles
of our parents. wash the car
in the driveway on days off.
count the change out
in the jar. minimize number
of mirrors in the house. no
reflective surfaces. wash and wipe everything
twice. wash and wipe again.
try to sleep at night
ignoring the buzzing in your ears.
try and hope that everything
has been properly completed
in order, in rows
and columns, neatly folded
and stacked.
try and breathe deep
as you can. pretend
that death is not soon
imminent. believe in heaven
outside the narrow rows.
try not to think
of loose insulation, or the way
your hair curls at the ends now.
things used to be simpler
and louder.
...