L.R. Harvey Poetry

COMEBACK Regarding the species of the dead,  little can be said with certainty,  though such ambiguity has not deterred the dog from dropping it, piece  by piece, in dry clicks on the porch.  Today a vertebrae, the night before  what might pass for a femur, t omorrow, maybe, a tibia or a jaw, licked white  by wind and frost's coarse tongue. Hard  to explain to the neighbor, this  collection littering the yard,  and harder still to explain what he plans  to do with such remains, unless like a bur in his coat there remains a late-inning trick, and in a swift, dyslexic  inversion  the black dog becomes  a god bright  as day, in no uncertain terms  commanding the bones to get it together and heel, his bark stitching them  in meat and a name. I can't claim to know much of this dog and the gnawed over  baseball he noses to my feet, but all the same, of this my sore shoulder is sure: he loves to play the long game. 

CROWDED Attending jury thickening the very air with your bodies, pardon me for ignoring to pardon  myself as I shoulder through you to take out the trash or pour  myself a glass of water. These eyes were drawn with a thick-tipped Sharpie, forever bleeding closed. Or, I suppose,  it's more like running late for life  and unable to afford the time to let  the windshield thaw: if we can see at all, it isn't much. Of course,  such a defense wouldn’t stand in a court of law, unless—to throw a bit of mud on the matter— the judge were not a judge but a  surgeon, who says he’s seen  this type before and calls the defendant  forward, scalpel raised like a gavel  to close the case and open something more. 

PROPERTY LINE A September light we can't afford slips bills from morning's wallet to settle down- payments on the metallic crown of Title World,   now offering 60-months interest-free  in an economy where clean deeds are hard  to come by. Yesterday, Eddie and I  pulled up the weeds to find the corner  stake where our fields meet, just  to make sure we knew what was what  before he planted a maple tree. It took  some rooting around but we found it,  with a little water and a thumb  wiped clean the orange disk till it shone bright as the one now over Title World,  that corner post of another survey making clear that both here and far beyond our tiny field  of sight is claimed, named, and notarized, which—though this requires we admit we've never owned a lick of it— is great news, given the stakes.

WAX ON, WAX OFF The sum total of all the little things turns out to be—in the end—incredibly  little still, the vast monolith you were  promised if only you trusted the process no more than a pebble kicked  up and glancing unnoticed off the Big Rig's windshield. It’s not that  what you do doesn’t matter, it’s just that  what you do doesn’t matter  all that much , and were you, say, not   to do it, barbecue joints would still offer  salad bars with an order of endless ribs and dogs would persist in picking thick  fights with thin air. Enough t o make one consider slipping off the bone to join them in howling  at the abyss, t hough were you to do this there'd be a perfectly good head of lettuce sure to wither, not to mention another stray— an ordinary one with footprints dewed-over come morning—waiting  faithfully to be called inside by someone  whose mere voice alters everything.

BREAKING THROUGH A few snag it on a sheet or are shoved from behind and don’t have to decide.  They are the prophets. Most wrap it   in gauze and convince themselves  they’re fine. You’ll find some of us,  though, inhabiting in-betweens as un- sanctified as the middle seat of a sedan  or sitting absent-minded at the kitchen  island, interrogating the sharp edge  of the scab we’re too weak to yank off  but refuse to let heal, forced to satisfy ourselves in sucking—one drop  at time—that slow letting of the real  that persists in pulsing beneath.

FEELING FOR THE SWITCH You asked where God is and meant it  as sincerely as your nightly request for a glass of water by the bed.  So I said—with equal sincerity—“Well,” wishing in the silence to draw up  something deep and profound  I never found. You pried. So instead I tried, “the words of this world  are in the business of suggesting  the next word and the next  world, like kicking a pebble to pick the path  or asking a question until you find not an answer but your way  home.” Or that’s what I would have  said—a cryptic response but one  that rang true somewhere below the brain, like the God about who  you asked—had I not spilled your water  glass, that constant presence  breaking in and soaking through  your sheets, our very skin.

DEAD PEOPLE So you’ve stumbled into a body  and don’t know what to do. Us too.  But before you call the coroner and chalk it up as the deceased it boasts itself to be, f ind a stick and give the bloke  a sharp poke. If it rolls  over, in a cranky voice croaks something like “just leave me be,  can’t you see I’ve died  already,” stay on the scene until the surgeon. comes. Such a corpse might yet be  saved. If, however, it stands up,  waves, inviting you to take a seat in its stead in the warm patch of  flattened grass it's prepared for you, even stooping to wash the dirt from your feet, give it a nod and pass on. This one is already gone. Some things are hard but true: the dead are those who know there’s always more dying to do.

HERE  Sometimes the air rings right, a tight harmony trueing itself  into our skin.  Sometimes, even here  in the Now,  we taste Then.  Yes, even here  in Georgia there’s more  than humidity  making it thick, a pulse we stick into our pipes  and puff  on porches as we sit a spell and spill the secret ingredient of our home- grown hope for a presence that won't turn bitter  in our mouths,  vanishing  with a hiss  and no more  than a faint  whisper  of its cherry amaretto.  

IDEATION No easy way to say this,  but I haven't been myself  of late. Intrusive thoughts,  a sudden weight, all that. Please  don’t bear the blow of this attack, late nights playing back how I might  have been saved, if only this , etc. You get the gist. No one  saw it coming, the way it crept inside and hollowed out  a space for itself until  there was nothing left.  What’s that? Wait, this isn’t  about death. More as if  someone else is breathing in me,  has become my very breath.

SLOWLY COMING AROUND Till finally, after years of slipping into  other peoples’ skins and trying on their lives, finding a good accessory or two but nothing that fits you with that it   factor that seemed so sure  when they wore it, you return  to your own, thin closet  worse for wear. Your options here  are admittedly slimmer than you would want your neighbor to know,  so much so  that if we’re shooting straight  you’re really down to two:  get back out there, soldier,  chameleoning to find that perfect fit, or come to terms with it and look at what’s hanging  right in front  of you,  and—with a brief brush   to shake the sleeves of dust— hold it up, take a deep breath, a nd learn to want what wraps you so right you thought you had nothing on.

TECHNICIAN If I am but a small screw  in this, your inscrutable machine,  would the DIYer’s dusty box  of tools be smaller still,  their only drill bit too thin to do more than hollow out  my core in a pile of silver shavings. Would they rave at this  a while, grinding their teeth  at each repeated failure  to extract me from my post and save themselves  a buck. Forgive this wasted afternoon, their muttered fucks . And then, despite a host of tricks and tips promising  better luck, a surer grip,  let no expedient remain to them but you, and this at whatever exorbitant cost. 

ONE DEGREE TO ANOTHER Until, in near-imperceptible  gradation, you realize you are being followed by a contingent of that chattering covey you brushed past whose chatter stilled, as if someone broke off mid- sentence and asked  to be excused in pursuit of a scent so familiar  it aches. You will find you  can’t shake them, wind as you might,  as they fight through the crowd to keep  in your wake, the chance of a sideways glance. You will not be fast  enough and they will catch up at some crossroads or other, tap you on the shoulder. Turn around.  They will say, “Oh, I thought  you were someone else.” You will reply, then, in a voice you know  is not your own, “I am.”