Incidentals
By: Andy Rojas
for Melinda, who taught me love
"Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden
of Eden,
to till the ground from whence he was taken."
Genesis 3:23
1. Crossroads in Western New York
The sky is gray and heavy parchment;
rain blurs all horizons,
the grove of apple trees
that stretches into gloom.
A woman by a fence
opens a mailbox. I slow my car.
She looks up; her eyes
are mine. I can not read them.
A leaf lands on my windshield
like a hand. It holds. Then it is gone.
2. The Passion
Father, I am born again
and now I'm nothing.
You gave me bloody birth
when I was six.
Take, eat, this is my body,
the deadly fruit
you whispered in my ear.
You are the razor cut
slick as your tongue,
the cross of blood
carved on my chest.
You are the bite marks,
the burning venom.
I take a knife. I cut.
3. Masked Ball
My love, that is my mask
you placed on the night stand.
That my shirt on the floor.
This my body.
I am the storm of tears,
the shoreline of your hips.
I am your raging breakers,
the broken schooner.
The clock screams midnight.
I am nothing now.
4. Passing Through Damascus, New York
Driving at night, into rain,
the windshield wipers beating
like hearts, and everywhere
is you: rain, wipers,
my heart. Headlights appear
suddenly. They blind me, and are gone.
This is my love for you,
the held breath, the heartbeat,
first darkness, then light,
then darkness again.
5. Elegy
Father, the mirror speaks.
Yours is the face I see,
these thoughts I hear,
this body I carry when I wake,
all yours. Yours the ashes
I hold tight in a box,
yours the words, "I want
no elegy." Yours
my earliest memory:
your cock, my mouth,
a frozen boy, a man
burning as with fever.
Yours the dark bathroom,
my small body, the nights
you took me from my bed.
Yours my sister's screams,
her years of fear,
her pills, her alcohol,
her gown bloody with you.
I close my eyes. I see.
Father, your mask
I wore to keep you hidden,
deep within me, far
from the light. No more.
Father, your words
I spoke to exorcise you,
your hate I wrought,
your seed I kept within,
all in rebellion, all
subject to you. No more.
Our ashes
I scatter to the wind.
Let the earth take us.
It is done.
6. Witching Hour
My love, your voice calls me
from the kitchen. Night is inside.
Power is gone. Alone
in a new bedroom, a new house,
nothing unpacked, nothing
familiar, memory is false.
The dark is black netherworld;
it weighs heavy as the past.
The wish for light is folly.
You call to me -- I answer,
closer now. I turn to you,
arms in front, the walking dead.
Your touch startles me, at last.
We cling like frightened children.
Your body fills space I know.
Primeval night has shaken me --
I fear you are a silent ghost.
I fear you will vanish like sight.
You laugh. It yet may come to be.
Or (who can say?)
it yet may not.
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Fall 2003 Issue