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TEMPER
Larka is afraid, curled
up
in the corner, shadows
all around her.
Strafed
by flashing neon,
she hears again
the beating
of her mother's heart
from the womb
left long ago.
Ghostly notes.
Rhythmic notes.
Pounding
she accepts their attendance
to this night
and the memory of safety
that they bring.
Larka prays
with unformed words
for the sun's return,
for the moon's many spirits
to leave this place,
to stop their circle dance.
She remembers
that the devil hides
in corners, rolls
to the center
of the hardwood floor,
cannot see the stars
for the city's lights.
Larka leaves herself
laying there, leaves
the trembling body,
leaves the small sobs, takes
a hike through the walls,
follows the poetry
so plainly written
on the concrete sidewalk.
She follows
the bartime gypsies
to the traffic light,
but is left behind
when they cross
against the red.
Larka is not lost
on the street, among
the hookers
displaying their wares,
showing their self-contempt,
pushing, pushing,
falling down.
The night preacher
reads testaments,
strokes the bible,
triggers no reaction
from the safe distance
of the radio room
on the thirteenth floor
of the Chandler building.
All night Larka wanders
farther away from herself,
but moves east, always east,
wants the sun to rise
on another day, urges
four a.m. to become dawn.
Feral dogs prowl in
packs,
scavenge the alleyways,
skirt the drunks stumbling
home alone, refuse to consume
the one drowning in his vomit.
Larka reaches the
ocean,
the sandy beach beyond
the boardwalk—there are
lovers holding each other
against the faint stars
that pierce the fading lamps,
there is the rhythm of the waves,
there are the dead fish
washed to high tide's mark—
they are tangled in the stink
of seaweed.
As the surf pounds the
sand,
Larka thinks of her body,
how she loves her eyes
as they examine her from the mirror,
how she is tired of crying,
how there is something
she's seeking, an answer,
that will propel her
toward her reigned desire.
The first predawn light
touches the horizon with a blue
so dark it could be black, green,
she doesn't have a name
for the color.
The feral children come
out
of their hiding places
under the boardwalk,
head up the street
to the dumpsters
of the all night bars
and cafes.
Larka follows them
as they navigate the shadows,
follows the little girl
who looks so much
like her compact mirror
and beckons Larka onward.
As the kids go through
chicken bones and wilted greens,
gnawing away, they pocket glinting trinkets
and a fire sparks in Larka's belly.
She tastes the acid burn
in her throat and ears.
Larka talks softly, oh
so softly,
through clenched teeth
and the fire storm in her blood,
to the child who sees her specter.
Larka takes the child's hand, leads her
from the squalid refuse,
up tenth street dimming
as overhead lamps blink off,
up the five flights of stairs,
to apartment twenty-seven.
In perfect silence,
the feral girl unquestionably pounds
her open hand upon the door, rhythmically
shivers the wood, cannot reach
the tarnished knob to let herself in.
Larka rejoins her body,
joins the battle to balance
the many, constricting emotions
and the crippling fear.
Somehow Larka digs up
her buried anger—
hates those who used her,
hates those who tore her life
for their harsh profit—
and creates a tool
that moves her hand upward,
that opens the door.
Kenneth lives in the upper left corner of your U.S. map on the Olympic
Peninsula of Washington (90 miles west of Seattle). There he maintains his
happiness with an easy lifestyle and just enough work to pay the bills.
Over the years his poems have been published in several journals, many
reviews and an anthology or three. He edits and maintains the
Tamafyhr Mountain Poetry website. |