by Joel Chace
A fleshed wedge -- seventy years on,
he still sees him. Since my
earliest childhood, a barb of sorrow
has lodged in my heart; if
it is pulled out, I’ll die.
Kindergarten, out by the swings, the
other appears for the first time,
with his head long, narrowed, a
wedge. So the boy kicks him,
laughs. Next day, the wedge speaks,
his voice low, unchildlike. They play.
On the third day, all those
minutes till recess drag. The destruction
of the past, perhaps the worst
crime of all. He longs, longs
for the wedge; he wants to
eat him right up. But that
other’s nowhere, nowhere on the playground
and won’t be again. Seventy years
beyond, he still desires. The great
sorrow of human life is knowing
that to look and to eat
are two different operations.
A guest witch remembers when they
invited her more frequently. Much more.
Boredom is the root of all
evil -- the despairing refusal to be
oneself. She’d love to wring these
hosts’ scrawny necks. But then… Whether
you hang yourself or do not
hang yourself, you will regret both.
Let someone other than she, she
decides, take the rap for causing
an embarrassment of witches. My sorrow
is my castle. She winks, and
fifteen miles away, some car runs
over a cat. Simple earthly mechanics.
In this world, we live in
a mixture of time and eternity;
hell would be pure time. The
gentleman next to her at table
explains that he must immediately stop
eating this breakfast, or become fat.
Perfectly idle. You too, my heart,
so wild and daring in battle
and tempest; in this calm, you
now feel the stirring of your
serpent, with its fierce sting. Nothing
as dead as a gray cat
dead in gray rain.
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