Bonfires (or surviving)
Anymore, it's the tiny bonfires
that light up my shoulders,
dance a bit on the muscle
I crushed moving that time,
alone, as if it lent an air
of dignity to surviving,
not living, not dying,
but scratching a trail
through mud and cement,
a bag of tricks pulled along
side like some lunatic magician
might carry his rabbit's foot
as proof that once
it came from his very hat;
a testimony to his magic,
to what he was,
or rather what they thought
he might be one day,
if he stayed behind,
or rather ahead,
of the magic.
It's really about walking your life
in someone else's shoes,
how it scrapes the tips off
a nerve at a time, how exhausting
it gets to argue the wind's decision
to burn his swirls in a flawless dune.
and why I continue to name
all the great powers
male.
5-99 (first draft) 6-99 (edited)
Well another personal statement!!
I don't know that, even today a good month
after I wrote the first draft, if I understand
this piece. I think this will remain a piece
that sees changes each time I look at it
for more than a second, if I ever find the true poem,
under what seems like three, I'll post it.
