|
North Star
|
Dawn, and again the skull hums like gray parchment you could stick your finger through. Getting up isn’t an option--it’s the falling down that wears you out. What energy’s left is better spent listening to the grasshopper outside your window, wings clicking like a baseball card in bicycle spokes. And suddenly you can see yourself on that first bike, gliding down Bowman Street, at last thrilled with your life. Zooming past parked cars, the city’s metallic breath finally bearable; even the bruised hours of home faded in that moment. Nothing could stop you, no one could brace their adult arms against you. And the great shafts of light that punched themselves between maples became ramps to somewhere better and all you had to do was hold on as the bike ascended...
You now stare at the ceiling and raise your arm, fingers drawing stars into the cracks. If only you knew how to forge the North Star, sail away from this room with its night sweats and oppressive hours. The grasshopper snaps quiet, leaving morning to do what it must--break dumbly against things made and unmade, to go on, to exist.
|
|
Writer
Bio
|
Christopher Locke is the author of a collection of poetry titled How to Burn (Adastra Press, 1995). Slipping Under Diamond Light, his second collection, is forthcoming this winter from Clamp Down Press. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in various magazines, including The Literary Review, The Larcom Review, Descant, The Sun, Exquisite Corpse, The Connecticut Review, The Chattahoochee Review, and The Anthology of Magazine Verse & Yearbook of American Poetry. He has received several awards and commendations for his poetry, including a grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Council and a fellowship from Foundacion Valparaiso in Spain. In 2001, he was a recipient in the Robert Penn Warren Awards. He lives in Massachusetts and is a staff writer for the magazine Red Herring.
chrisplocke@hotmail.com
|
|
Other
Pedestal Published Works
|
|
|
|