The War of 1991

A cloud gathers behind the windows, fogging the glass. The glass curves, like an exit lane, but there is no exit. The cloud goes nowhere, degrading into fog. Pressure; building, and building. The atoms excite; heat. The fog is oppressive; the room is a steam engine. Pounding; the atoms push against the window pane, one by one by one. The curvature creaks in complaint against the pressure. A scream of white flags sliver and snake across the pane. There is release.

We creep through the cracks like children let out of school. The air is open. We run through the streets to see every windowsill decorated with broken glass. The barriers between the internal and external are now permeable. We’ve learned to let the open air inside like a lost stray. Century-old portraits on the mantle now weather more rapidly, but the faces look younger.

7:20, PM: a boy sits on the porch with a head cold. As he sits, the fog crawls slowly back through the windows and his eyes grow red. I sit across the street and dully rub my own burning eyes. All down the road, from this coast to the next, we red-eyed youths sit on our porches beside a plastic bag of medicines, unable to sleep because the fog has crept from the window to our beds.

Stepping Through the Doorframe

There was a man with feet

bronzed by the dirt he’d stepped in –

dirt faded from red to bronze by a southern sun.

He steps over hardwood floors

with skin dry enough to glide

over the panels like ballerinas

dance over undisturbed water.

 

I am a vessel; breathing and moving

as the waters that pour from the

mouths of mountain caves.

I called those mountains ‘home’

as a boy; the light was redder, then.

 

The deadbolt groans coldly

as it serves its nightly purpose.

Metal is unstable: frigid in

my heated living room as the

winter I left behind, outdoors.