Page 12 - WDickinson_Blackwell_Submission

Ma(e)ternal Estrangement

I am space. / I loom large in cubic places. / I
follow each contour closely / electron shooting through
continuum / through this door and the next, the bus
station from home to that foreign / place. That
bed where the nightmare that you are driving /
down a 4-lane road in evening / that you, on familiar
highways, burst into flames. / The nightmare that manifests
itself into the shoulder. / The nightmare, swelling from the right /
is becoming on you. //

I take up space. / I go to public places. / I
follow the contours of your warmly rumpled face from memory /
electron continuously / attached and reattached. / Through
the door I go, each foreign station becoming that
bed where the nightmare that you are driving /
down a 2-lane road at midnight / that you, on familiar
roads, burn long into the night. / The nightmare that manifests
itself into the shoulder. / The nightmare, proliferating from each side /
is becoming on me. //

I create the space, / I live in public places. / I
follow each contrail closely / electron continuously
pulled forward / like the ghost nerve that still feels /
that doorway, foreign with time, but familiar, /
the uncomfortable realization of the nightmare /
of you driving down a backroad at 2 a.m. / that you,
unfamiliar with death, cinder yourself into memory. /
The nightmare that manifests itself onto my shoulders,
proliferating from each side, the space that extends
and continuously suffocates, the dimensions of grief
is becoming on us. //

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