The Lungs Need Inflation

Leah Angstman


ALL THE KING'S HORSES

—Leah Angstman, Palo Alto
 
Blood inside eyelids
can be either vagary or reality
without much matter which;
it still is relived against his face
when my eyes in sleep
press his eyes in sleep.

How did I hold there and
pull a sixteen-year brain
apart from glass in a culvert
in a canyon
excavating for a mind

with these nursery rhymes
so close to the tongue
I could not put the pieces
together again?

______________________

Oh, HOW WE ALL NEED YOUR WATER NOW, ALEKSEY
(for Russian poet Aleksey Dayen, found dead after severe dehydration at age thirty-eight)

We’re drowning in it,
pouring over our faces
yet dehydrated
with exhaustion,
finality.

Words drunk could give
fresh life to the thirsty
but grave poisoning
to minds saturated, held
captive inside ribcages swollen
and ripe with famine,
throats and exits alike,
burning for sousing
nutrients,
plants of lines,
sonnets, stanzas, haiku,
iambic thermometer.

Were I at Normandy,
landing on this beach
after days surrounded by water;
were I drudging through a barren
unthawed Russian tundra,
untouched blankets of snow
curled at my feet in demitasse
cups and saucers with
pinky not even extended,
there would still
not be
enough
to
drink.

_____________________

INNOCENCE FACES A NEW CHALLENGER 

Gathering in Mrs. Cornish’s
on a Tuesday in January,
particularly cold I remember
because it seemed so warm in Florida;
they weren’t wearing jackets.

To someone beneath grades,
the rolling TV cart was a novelty
and more so in the carefully chosen
seat next to Josh, the teacher’s son,
who still aspired
to be an astronaut,
his excitement rubbing on me
like hope of the unknown,

but the only lasting memory
was a burst of white smoke,
a blaze of fire, the knowledge that
something went terribly wrong
without comprehension of O-rings,
Mrs. Cornish’s jaw falling open in
hands that frantically turned
the screen from hope’s quick eyes.

____________________

PORT OF CALL

In reclining, I feel intense blaze
of your severe eyes
groping face and lungs;
gripping the white of my pale
throat with knuckles fisted;
dripping in spaces;
licking through pores
in quiet desperation,
fiery and graceful;
creeping with mercury,
the leaded poison left
within the walls of vessels
docked in spoiled shipyards,
residue littering broken cells
regenerating themselves.

____________________

THE BROKEN SAIL OF DAVID

The lungs can't stand on their own.
They need
inflation;
they need
legs,
your sails to get you there.

Yours, struggling to sail again
after deflating in
crucial timing of sudden wind.

Precautionary chemo
was the phrase on the
tips of tongues
cloaked in white coats—   
the just in case,
the maybe-we-should-be-watchful,
mindful,
pre ...
cau ...
tious.

The lungs don't feel the need
for precaution—
your breath so lax into them,
but weakness shows.
Each one of those breaths
up the hill dragging dark and,
yes,
pre ...
cau ...
tious ...

pre ...
cious.

The tap-tapping of the keys
is slower,
the paragraphs smaller,
the joy,
less.

Can't trade in
other cancerless organs,
parts and pieces,
for the protection of one sail;

just have to keep
sailing on the broken one.

_____________________

SPARE CHANGE

En route to the bank,
three thousand in cash
burning a hole in my messenger bag:
dollar bills,
tips from the bar,
here-and-there cash
collected from two months
of not depositing.

There ahead, the regular
selling the
Spare Change homeless newspaper
for a buck a pop;
his eyes,
his hands,
asking only for the buck—
one small dollar.

Here I am
with three thousand of
the very thing he asks,
and who am I
to pass
with fists tight,
knuckles emerged,
eyes down?

I hold out my hand
into his hand—
a crumpled bill between us,
shuffles the papers.
"I've already got this week's,"
and just say, "Keep it."

Eyes meeting for a split
in that shameful space around us,
I wretch past,
hear him
unfold the bill and gasp,
another and a blessing for me,
but I am too far gone now.

I step to the teller
—slip in hand,
cash in the other—
say,
"It will be short
twenty;
just scribble it out."

_______________________

Our thanks to Leah Angstman for today's poems! Leah has served as Editor-in-Chief of her own press company, Propaganda Press, for two decades, bringing over two hundred books by independent authors and poets into the small press (alternatingcurrentarts.blogspot.com). In addition to poetry, she writes historical fiction novels and plays, has had twenty books of her poetry published, and has earned two Pushcart Prize nominations. Her work has appeared in many journals, including Red Fez, Zygote in My Coffee, and a Guest Editor slot in Durable Goods. She can be found at leahangstman.blogspot.com, facebook.com/authorleahangstman, and twitter.com/leahangstman (@leahangstman).

______________________

Today's LittleNip:

There were enough reasons in the world

for her to go through with it.

She couldn't find a single reason
not to.

She hung her head to the table,
chose not to,
avoiding reason.

______________________

—Medusa

Leah