« Tim Poland »



Invitation to Haunt

for SRC

you’re long overdue, it seems, close to three
years gone now, and you’ve yet to appear
for a single decent face-to-face haunting

you know the sort, something cinematic
and flashy, full of gasps, with a menacing
soundtrack—consider this an invitation to

materialize in the passenger seat beside me,
sending the car into a nearly irreparable
tailspin across the wet pavement, or

rock noisily in the chair beside the bed and
remain there long enough for me to tell you
one of the thousand things I have to tell, or

appear behind me suddenly as I wipe
a hole in the steamed bathroom mirror
and set the steel blade to my throat, or

drift before me, face grinning around that pipe
clamped tight in your teeth, floating on the
braids of smoke winding from my cigarette, or

rise like a trout from the waters of this river
that has run through our veins like blood,
this river where your ashes paint the stones

these few photographs inadequate, the
ring of your laughter reverberating in my
ears every goddamn day, not enough

come on now, what’s keeping you?



Earth Science

…but the earth abideth for ever. (Ecclesiastes 1:4)

so we’ve been told, but
I’m no longer convinced

1000 miles per hour—speed at which the earth turns on its axis

so of course the dog ran east that time to lap
up full advantage of the speed of the spinning

67,000 miles per hour—speed at which the earth orbits the sun

flung at such a reckless pace, it’s no surprise to find
a few bugs lodged in my teeth at the end of the year

761 miles per hour—speed at which sound travels

but faster at higher temperatures, so we closed the
windows, stoked the fire, and listened carefully
9.8 meters per second—speed at which an object falls

acorns the squirrels drop on us from the red oak obey the
theorem while sibling leaves resist the physics of falling

186,287 miles per second—speed at which light travels

yet still not fast enough to catch the warning in the
momentary arch of your eyebrow before it’s too late

29.5 days—length of a lunar cycle

impossible, in such a short time, for us to recover
from one full moon before the next one appears

3-15 centimeters per year—speeds at which the tectonic plates that
form the earth’s crust shift and move

so finally I learn that the slide of the North American plate
where our house sits is the cause of that crack in the driveway

how can anything abideth when riven by
such a fracus of velocities? how to hold
ourselves in place when the ground slithers
beneath us? how to begin when time is
a spasm and the earth is a pot of split-pea
soup still simmering on the flame and our
histories quiver like splinters in the thin,
green skin forming on the surface, apt to
bubble loose into the vapor at any moment?

4,550,000,000 years—age of this earth and this solar system—give or take a few
years, depending on religious affiliation

73 years—average life span of an American male—a white one like me, that is

so, if you come home one day and can’t find me,
don’t panic, darling, but hurry—keep searching

look a few centimeters to the right or left
of where you left me and I’ll be there,

clinging to the North American plate,
waiting for you, holding on for dear life




Dreaming Other Options in a House Full of Dogs

in one dream there’s only one dog living with us in this house
and his name is, no, her name, is something like Milly and
she’s a pedigreed border collie, sometimes a golden retriever,
and she fetches my slippers and my newspaper and sits faithfully
at my feet and never poops on the floor and never barks unless
someone in a ski mask with a hunting knife tucked into his boot
is lurking outside in the dark spaces around the garbage cans

in another dream there are no dogs, not one, we don’t even like
dogs, we only have a cat, just one, and he doesn’t have a name
and doesn’t care a lick about us, except that we provide food,
so we’re free to do what we choose, when we choose, and every
weekend we set out an extra bowl of food, leave the house to the
nameless cat, and take a trip to someplace new and interesting,
someplace that involves a brochure and a guided tour

in another dream dogs are prey, and we hunt and kill them, without
passion, with skill and precision, using weapons we’ve fashioned
ourselves—then we eat them, turn their skinned bodies on a spit
over an open fire, gnaw roasted flesh from their bones, make rude
necklaces from their teeth, and wear dog-skin hats—you look
particularly fetching with the pelt of a wild Pomeranian draped about
your face, its dried, stuffed head mounted on yours like a tiara

in another dream, you lie sleeping in the grass, just like you are right
now, and one of these many mongrel dogs we share this house with
sleeps next to you, curled into your side, between breast and hip,
exactly my favorite spot on your body, exactly where I would curl
into you if I were the dog sleeping beside you in the grass right now,
exactly the spot I would wish to be if I were that blind dog with the
bum leg snoring next to you in the grass behind this house



Tim Poland lives and works in the New River Valley near the Blue Ridge Mountains in southwestern Virginia where he is a professor of English at Radford University. He is the author of Escapee (America House, 2001), a collection of short fiction. His work has been published in various literary magazines, such as The Beloit Fiction Journal, Timber Creek Review, Literal Latté, The Furnace Review, Rattle, Main Street Rag, Sow’s Ear Poetry Review, Appalachian Journal, Appalachian Heritage, and others. He is the recipient of a Plattner/Appalachian Heritage Award, and his work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.




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