That there was recuperating grid lifting immeasurable tendencies of shapes to limit
their relax, that there was an edge visible to those who remembered stoned places
for everything, its little pale country of orgasm floats in above ground pools, convinced
against Long Island tesselations of rabid gingham, and that in this there was an elision
of past tense, you can’t keep track of it. Won’t someone bake until golden brown,
meanwhile the dog is having a bad dream in old sun, that languidly this is how
the folk song went, coding Slavic wallpaper of the night like a cave remembers
the darkness and emotionally drains the hotel Bible navy thicket from the void setup,
that there was a blurred vision, distal historic and erudite during a loiter of whispers,
I, for one, remain a blue footstep of afternoon, having inscribed looking out into night
there was America and it was bad to have grown up near the plastics factory with a face
like a warehouse just south of where the autobiography was pitched at the feet of the deviant
odor, thou who peeled the fruit’s skin back and licked the flesh intimately, a holiday
you can rent to gently impress your dad. And that he was more than twice my age,
I tried to watch my brain but instead fondled by cassettes and bulled to a margin, edited
I was, and that I’m archived by it, confessedly, I ride an invoice, baby, a Latinized algorithm
that brought me here, such as. Stapled the leaves back to my garden, that I’m having trouble
applying the makeup of the lesson to the skin on the face of the lie, what is the threshold
here, that tenderly there was a language sour asleep in arms at the edge of the grass hut
of the world, under the lodestar, revealed slightly, beaten by salt, that there in drag
was the permission of the moon and its lexical harvest of gestures translated
from the vapor of a universal forget, that there was a sleeping to create bounty,
the curious gaps in time, that I wore a t-shirt with the logo of something inspirational
That the gaps of the trees in the forest made space for passerine time to be a contour
at all, in this way, that a sequence polished his wish to be desired, watched like some coral,
though he is hundreds of miles away, the time regulated distance, shine taped to a crystal
of sleep, the lips of the tense of the scythe admired the blood of the field, tenderly
asleep in a rush, that this is how the landscape made itself known. Children’s penmanship
among the bleached rainbow yawn, almost Carolingian, an activity of corporate prayer,
adding relief in umbrage to kiss the darker bits of the civilization’s recto, this grove
and this treehouse, this flood and this erotic cup, regarding the future I kept driving
through the grid, a theme in honor of this grey, an introduction to these hills
more smoke than feeling, more linen than the afternoon, more horizon than sky,
that’s why people left here, further vernacular proof. In this way I changed
my mind, nearby was a cloud I ate with my eyes. I was fearful, I wore a white shirt
on a very brown, very flat parcel, apologize whether I’m full of pain, I want peace,
come out you, lots of morning, the audience of the dispersed here, past forgiving
Ryan Skrabalak is a writer, worker, and organizer from upstate “New York” currently based with his dog Donkey in “Kansas.” He is the author of several chapbooks, most recently The Technicolor Sycamore 10,000 Afternoon Family Earth Band Revue (Ursus Americanus, forthcoming summer 2023). He is a member of AFT 6403 and edits the poetry micropress Spiral Editions.