On a Cold Day in a Small Town Called Sunshine
On a cold day we traipse barefooted on the beach to feel the air to know what lies within and beyond the sea’s edge where landfall meets land’s end you say a storm is coming and I say your name out loud to your shadow down there on the sand you leading you to the places you have not been you say people who belong together need not be together after they partake of each other’s shame together we find a bloated seal on dry sand whose eyes will not close we touch her gritty skin and nothing happens the laying on of hands brings both peace and pain in everything we do a part of us remains you talk of dying as something you could do by yourself and this same dark worm sleeps in both of us and I say I hate how breath rhymes with death we find bare toe-to-heel imprints that end at high tide a place to enter and to leave could it be someone plunged into the rip of the ocean or did someone backtrack to the small town’s motel because there’s nothing better than getting back together after breaking up as the tide recedes to uncloak ghost-like jellyfish and between a break in the clouds a wedge of cormorants flies on the wind’s tail we are looking in different directions Thelonious Monk talking the talk of music said you’ve been making the wrong mistakes I say sunshine is a place in the throat of an hourglass a day gone and a day to come you laugh and say sound and time are seas to drown in when the shade we cast moves away
This Is Where the Story Begins
From the sun’s black the sun arises
to make the mountain laurel venomous
to make the mountain laurel vigorous
This is where the story begins
No life is unworthy of life
the days wound each other
a body worthy of being whole
comes apart
the difference
between truth and the end of words
one does not match lives to words
one does not match words to the world
This is where the story begins
Candles set before a vanity mirror
a miniature crèche and vials of essential oils
silhouette cutouts to chase evil spirits away
Tibetan prayer bells and singing bowls
and horses and reeds etched on red lacquered urns
the ashes of lovers and lost stars
flesh and blood diamonds and dust
white bone chips
This is where the story begins
The dancer weaves her body
loosens her blackened hair
fastened with orangewood sticks
skin taut face drawn unseen
powdered bruises
her arms flail and float as she slides to the floor
a shapeless shape of silk and thread
This is where the story begins
Lucretius says the gods created the world
then vanished and left us to be alone to be all one
everything falls and everything resurrects
through a double-hung window the wind’s dark eyelid
a collapsed shadow against a whitewashed wall
bells carry empty sounds across the barrens
a grain of sand evolves into a pearl
all things kill themselves
This is where the story begins
A search and rescue team
picks up the pieces puts them
in a body bag
so when his body hits the dirt
he is — says the medic — already dead
someone in platoon yells incoming
someone in the Quonset hut calls out
hit the rack
how many times do you turn
in your sleep asks the battalion shrink
the green lieutenant says I was asleep
so I can’t really say but I know I’ve been
grinding my teeth
it’s the sound in me coming out
I can neither turn it on nor turn it off
I just can’t stand for anyone
to touch me
This is where the story begins
It’s like being tied up and abandoned
a married man drops his pregnant girlfriend
the wife finds out and forgives him
a shaft passes through the body
the body falls apart
there are just too many pieces
to repair
This is where the story begins
The counselor asks the girl
if she has trouble sleeping
only when I’m awake she says
do you want the baby
I do and don’t know
it’s like being tied up inside
tie a knot a bow my tubes
and then palms up she holds out her arms
a sign of suicide
and surrender
This is where the story begins
The mountain surrounds and holds
yellow dust stretches down blue cliffs
This is where the story begins
Joseph Zaccardi served as Marin County, CA poet laureate (2013-2015), and during his tenure published and edited Changing Harm to Harmony: Bullies & Bystanders Project. He is the author of four books poetry, the latest being A Wolf Stands Alone in Water (CW Books 2015). His poems have appeared in Cincinnati Review, Poet Lore, Poetry East, Spillway, Atlanta Review, and elsewhere. www.josephzaccardi.com
On a cold day we traipse barefooted on the beach to feel the air to know what lies within and beyond the sea’s edge where landfall meets land’s end you say a storm is coming and I say your name out loud to your shadow down there on the sand you leading you to the places you have not been you say people who belong together need not be together after they partake of each other’s shame together we find a bloated seal on dry sand whose eyes will not close we touch her gritty skin and nothing happens the laying on of hands brings both peace and pain in everything we do a part of us remains you talk of dying as something you could do by yourself and this same dark worm sleeps in both of us and I say I hate how breath rhymes with death we find bare toe-to-heel imprints that end at high tide a place to enter and to leave could it be someone plunged into the rip of the ocean or did someone backtrack to the small town’s motel because there’s nothing better than getting back together after breaking up as the tide recedes to uncloak ghost-like jellyfish and between a break in the clouds a wedge of cormorants flies on the wind’s tail we are looking in different directions Thelonious Monk talking the talk of music said you’ve been making the wrong mistakes I say sunshine is a place in the throat of an hourglass a day gone and a day to come you laugh and say sound and time are seas to drown in when the shade we cast moves away
This Is Where the Story Begins
From the sun’s black the sun arises
to make the mountain laurel venomous
to make the mountain laurel vigorous
This is where the story begins
No life is unworthy of life
the days wound each other
a body worthy of being whole
comes apart
the difference
between truth and the end of words
one does not match lives to words
one does not match words to the world
This is where the story begins
Candles set before a vanity mirror
a miniature crèche and vials of essential oils
silhouette cutouts to chase evil spirits away
Tibetan prayer bells and singing bowls
and horses and reeds etched on red lacquered urns
the ashes of lovers and lost stars
flesh and blood diamonds and dust
white bone chips
This is where the story begins
The dancer weaves her body
loosens her blackened hair
fastened with orangewood sticks
skin taut face drawn unseen
powdered bruises
her arms flail and float as she slides to the floor
a shapeless shape of silk and thread
This is where the story begins
Lucretius says the gods created the world
then vanished and left us to be alone to be all one
everything falls and everything resurrects
through a double-hung window the wind’s dark eyelid
a collapsed shadow against a whitewashed wall
bells carry empty sounds across the barrens
a grain of sand evolves into a pearl
all things kill themselves
This is where the story begins
A search and rescue team
picks up the pieces puts them
in a body bag
so when his body hits the dirt
he is — says the medic — already dead
someone in platoon yells incoming
someone in the Quonset hut calls out
hit the rack
how many times do you turn
in your sleep asks the battalion shrink
the green lieutenant says I was asleep
so I can’t really say but I know I’ve been
grinding my teeth
it’s the sound in me coming out
I can neither turn it on nor turn it off
I just can’t stand for anyone
to touch me
This is where the story begins
It’s like being tied up and abandoned
a married man drops his pregnant girlfriend
the wife finds out and forgives him
a shaft passes through the body
the body falls apart
there are just too many pieces
to repair
This is where the story begins
The counselor asks the girl
if she has trouble sleeping
only when I’m awake she says
do you want the baby
I do and don’t know
it’s like being tied up inside
tie a knot a bow my tubes
and then palms up she holds out her arms
a sign of suicide
and surrender
This is where the story begins
The mountain surrounds and holds
yellow dust stretches down blue cliffs
This is where the story begins
Joseph Zaccardi served as Marin County, CA poet laureate (2013-2015), and during his tenure published and edited Changing Harm to Harmony: Bullies & Bystanders Project. He is the author of four books poetry, the latest being A Wolf Stands Alone in Water (CW Books 2015). His poems have appeared in Cincinnati Review, Poet Lore, Poetry East, Spillway, Atlanta Review, and elsewhere. www.josephzaccardi.com