How You Play Out The Years
The first fever you ever had
the weight of a feather
on your brow like circumspection
gone wrong
or a father with heavy hands
(puts you into the wall sometimes)
a slice in the center of your first
and last word
we're gonna be here a while
says the lady with the kind of eyes
you learned to run away from
your mothers eyes
burned out like a bomb site
near a hovering water tower
where the kids drink at night
and star dust levels out the noise of the highway
transient daymares
all the clothes on the line
at the end of the world
can't you feel the fever taking
its sweet time
the hand print
of your father
the dry wall flaking off your sleeves
the disappearing-into-yourself act
and how
twenty years later
it still feels like the first and only real pain you've ever felt.
- James Diaz 2016
James Diaz lives in New York. His work has appeared in Pismire, These Fragile Lilacs, Epigraph, Foliate Oak, and Red Fez. He is founding editor of the literary arts journal Anti-Heroin Chic. http://heroinchic.weebly.com
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