As Close As I Can Come To It

that’s where I’ll be, where the breath is drawn in through the heart, and seated
deep in a disappearing dot that never goes away. Where our names are all vowels
ending in glottal stop, surprise, or dismay; where not even the red fern can root,
there will be I, along by my cuse, a more low-down wench I’d never find
and I knew it.

Still, I’d been asked to provide suitable sport for one going grayer now
than the lowering sky over Akron, and there, my friend, is the pits. There,
not far out of town, ancient smelters go green and phosphor white in the
dusk of another man’s day. Not mine. Here, with you knelt between my knees,
smiling shyly, I begin to know

the true meaning of avocation versus work, it’s a calling, no argument. And no interruptions. Later, your cheeks looked rouged, eyes bright as two crystals
bigger than the whole damn world. Would we ever come up
for air? Or, break stride to say piss to whatever, whatever?
I don’t know about you, honey, but I’m hungry.

Woman say never meet a feller so down at the ground. Well,
I’m doing my best, chicken, I am.


--R Skogsberg