Three Poems by Elizabeth Reames

 

Thorin Oakenshield and I Get Stoned and Listen to Mozart and David Bowie

I roll the weed into the paper dutifully,

minding the tolerance of my guest.

A lighter appears from somewhere in

the strange backyard where we sit,

kicked back in crickety lawnchairs

around a sputtering bonfire.

 

I do not question.

I only get the joint going,

and pass.

 

“We need some music.”

 

My phone appears.

 

You know what a phone is,

what a radio is—

 

I have made it so you know

what a phone is, what a radio is.

 

We have much more important things

to talk about.

 

“I think you'll like this guy.”

 

I say this, of course,

not because I know,

but because I feel it,

like weather.

 

                                                                                    I'll trust your judgment on that.

 

Just as the leaf begins to fall,

cozy and sleepy and golden

over my head, Mozart—

Serenade for Winds, Third Movement.

 

“Close your eyes.”

 

                                                                                    Why?

 

“Trust me—it's worth it.”

 

You give me a look, but do so anyway.

 

As the oboe wavers its tone

high above our heads,

I hear your intake of breath

(slow, but no less sharp,

like a blade slowly drawn

from its sheath), and I know

I was right.

 

You murmur something

I can't quite make out,

and I am envious

of the newness

which is, quietly,

ebbing from you.

 

I peek at you like a child during prayer;

that note has run you through.

 

I cannot tear my eyes away.

 

What a beautiful wound.

 

///

 

We're deep in the clouds

when Blackstar comes on shuffle.

 

“And now for something completely different.”

 

                                                                                    Why are you changing it?

 

“I don't know if you're ready for this yet.”

 

                                                                                    Try me.

 

As you are my guest, I oblige.

 

The fire has burnt down to mauve;

what inhuman shadows we cast

with our every exhale.

Everything is purpled,

the world is whirlwind,

the shade of the last

spasms of sunset.

 

 

You were smiling before, that

slight uptick at the corners

of your mouth, but now,

something strange comes

across your face.

A different kind of pain, as

an animal curling into itself,

a heart of glassy petals

blooming bloodpink,

losing itself in its shattering.

 

                                                                                    What...is this?

 

“He knew he was dying. The Singer.

So he took his last breaths and

made them into art.”

 

Your fate...the fate I've plucked you from...

 

You remember it.

 

Longing—iron band in your chest,

longing, longing, fear, longing—

 

You didn't know, you didn't know,

but now you know, and knowing

is not so easily reversed.

 

I have wounded you.

 

///

 

“Well, you made it to the end. I'll give you that.”

 

                                                                                    …

 

“There's a better song. Here, hold on—”

 

I fumble for something with more

narrative, more a ballad than a trip—

 

“Perfect. Here we go.”

 

 

I fumble again for a roach clip

and settle for using a bobby pin.

Our hands make more contact

with every pass, every diminishing

of the joint. My fingerprint snags

every so slightly on your calluses,

but neither of us mention it

 

out loud.

 

The acoustic guitar, anyway, is a balm—

I can see it. You lean back in the lawnchair,

stretch. When The Singer mentions a Starman,

you look up into the face of the night,

try to find him in the maze of pinpricks,

this faintest smidge of the universe.

 

Low, baritone humming. Then. You sing.

 

And the perfect absurdity of it all—you,

being here, you, king of your people, you

stoic, straight-laced rockface—you,

being here, puff-passing in a

suburban backyard somewhere

in the multiverse, singing along

to The Singer, of all people,

and this song, of all songs—

 

the perfect absurdity of it all

hits me at once, and I laugh.

Deep and riotous, the kind

of laugh you only have

when you're high, when

you don't mind if you snort

or hiccup or wheeze.

 

And then you laugh too—

there's an inherent rarity to its rumble.

 

And then you're singing again,

and then I'm singing along with you

singing along with The Singer, and then

our voices become a cloud around

us

a cloud full of stars and starmen

 

and we are surrounded and held

by this, the warm, cosmic ridiculousness

I have invited you into.

 

And you, being game, sing along.

The Boxer (or, What Survived the Fire)

The attic is cold; the box smells like smoke, even after all this time. You've forgotten its specific contents, but not the life the detritus denotes. What brought you to the attic doesn't matter anymore. What matters is the crackle of ancient packing tape as you split it down the middle and spread the box wide open. // “What got you into boxing?” The primal intrigue of two people displaying the depth of power—the viscera, the sweat, the feeling of forces colliding in ways I cannot name. // The aged yellow newsprint, butterfly-skin thin, you set aside. // Why the fire came, I do not know. In its path, my kin, all of those who loved me. What use is playing at godhood when one night you come home to a pile of dust, empty of voices; even the dying gasps would have been better than that silence. // The eulogy you never brought yourself to read, you set aside. // A fox-edged roll of boxing tape. For old times sake, you twine it around your fingers, weaving the usual pattern, leaving the diamonds of your knuckles bare and waiting. Your hands remember their powers, though not quite well enough to follow through with the same force, the same fire, imprecise though it could be, but in its heat even the blows that stole your breath could not keep you from rising again, ash-stained, but still, at least, alive.

 

///

 

cold

You've forgotten

what brought you to

the viscera, the sweat, the feeling

I cannot name

the fire came

all of those who loved me

a pile of dust, empty

old times

remember their powers

its heat

your breath

 

///

 

cold

forgotten

you

sweat 

name

the fire

empty

time

powers

your breath

An Elegy, upon Parting from Long-Held Griefs

Long have I kept rest from you.

Long in my selfishness have I imprisoned you.

Long have I ignored your pleas for release.

Long have I smothered grief in my heart.

 

I open it now.

I release its burden.

 

I release the dust I've clung to,

hoping it would turn back into

something I love.

 

I name it dust.

 

I return it to the dust it came from; pour it out

among the river reeds and horsetail plants,

along the gravel-tones of the highway,

under the pine tree near the headstone I know best,

between the leaves in which I found you.

 

I only ask one more moment.

One last connection.

 

Give me your hand.

 

Go now, while my hand still holds

the imprint of yours.

Elizabeth Reames (she/her) is a poet pursuing her MFA at Butler University. Her work has been published in Kingdoms of the Wild, Soft Cartel, FIVE : 2 : ONE, and more. She lives in Indianapolis, but she's originally from the Metro-Detroit area.