Dale McLain
Spring 2008
boat trip
First of all, fuck the lookout.
He never told us a goddamn thing
until it was on us. Useless bastard,
well and finally gone!
I hate retrospection. Hate it,
but I have these surges of it
that clamor for recognition,
so I give in. Then I see us,
like a dream, too real, or unreal maybe,
not quite right, but probably accurate.
I see us out here in deep water,
far from land, just the way I like it.
We've seen some shit, all sorts of it.
Dead babies for starters.
That'll stick with you.
Family gone certifiably mad.
Secrets crept out to taint
the holidays with their cancerous bones.
Bad phone calls. The drip, drip, drip
of disappointment in everything
and everybody. And so forth.
The usual heartbreak of breathing.
Some days I think of the money.
Good Lord! We drank it, wore it,
gave it away in a million dull,
predictable ways.
I think about the freedom
it might have bought, but that’s bullshit.
Mostly I think of touching it.
The delight of all that currency
under my ass as you asserted
your God ordained right.
That’s crossed my mind.
And then I see us out here,
eyes shuttered to the inevitable storm,
just you and I, the captain and his crew,
left to sail this thing
right off the ever-loving edge.
all roads
I always begin this way in Rome,
certain I will take on the city’s energy,
her urgency. Instead I become her fuel,
depart spent and empty, but I,
most skilled at self-deception,
elect this morning to see no further
than the reliable spectacle
of daybreak over Trinita dei Monti.
I breathe the morning’s charged air
from my balcony, fill my lungs
with the delicious pollution of hope,
taste a certain sweetness in the familiar
lies that gather on my tongue.
How perfectly they mix with my eagerness
to pass them to you in the delectable
confection of our first kiss.
We agree to meet on the Spanish Steps,
smug with the cliché of it. I tell you to look
for my eyes, brown as wet bark, my aura
which is less a form of light than a bower,
thick with overblown blossoms.
As for you, I will know your posture,
the singular nature of your gait
as you cross the Piazza di Spagna.
I will see you from above and pretend
to know the whorl of your crown.
This is our best moment, before you pause,
tilt your head to listen to the Tiber’s gulls.
I have yet to slip my hand into my bag,
finger the soft leather of my passport.
It is not quite noon and Rome still holds
a few fine tricks up her silken sleeves.
immeasurable
In the year that caught me in its rusty snare,
cornered me, rolled me like a bum,
I grew an inch. Impossible, you might say.
Middle-aged ladies do not grow taller,
only wider, sadder, greyer. But it’s the truth.
I felt every millimeter in my bones.
The October sky was closer than it had ever been.
From my new perspective I could see
things that I'd forgotten. A footstep
was a mile. Each heartbeat claimed an hour.
So odd, that I was tighter bound
than a spool of coarse thread, but felt
as if my arms were feathered things
unfurled against a coastal wind.
In the year when I was laid open
by a silvery blade, cut from scalp to toe,
I was contained within folded petals
a blossom, cotton white and ready
for spring's kiss. I bled with joy,
a narrow river that went before me
as a thin rouged trail I knew was mine.
I learned to live unforgiven, came to own
a sorrow as deep as a December night
and a gladness that danced like stars
upon the sea. Things begin so slyly, steal
upon us like a summer twilight. I stand
altered, a tower dedicated to the next breath
drawn. Nothing fits me anymore.
Dale McLain lives in the suburbs of Dallas, Texas. She is a mixed media, jewelry and collage artist and considers art her first language. Her poetry been published online and in print. To read more visit her blog. Picking Up Shiny Things
