Back to Issue Twelve.

AGAINST THE BODY’S BLUE UNWIELD

BY ALEC HERSHMAN

 

The mind is buoyant and just like it,
I lift my skirt above the water-mark, 
for anyone. Bothered eyes 
take my legs 
                for a guess, though 
it doesn’t have to work that way—
a scar’s all glitz, really, 
                               for predictions. 
I cheapen those who look at me, and skin 
begins misunderstandings
                                       like a lake 
will dream the trees surrounding it to kelp. 
Despite the solemn looks that tag us 
as adults, 
            it’s possible to drag the water 
and whistle a fizzy song. Regardless 
how sharp the razors are, the wishes work 
both with and without reason: 
                                               a boy, once a man, 
once stumbled back from me, oak among oaks, 
into low sunlight which made him golden 
and impossible. To remember 
                                              isn’t going backwards; 
it only seems that way—the wish, like minutes 
from a long infatuation taken down 
in mere initials which 
                                 you carved into his trunk.

Alec Hershman lives in Bangkok, Thailand. He has received awards from the Kimmel-Harding-Nelson Center for the Arts, The Jentel Foundation, and The Institute for Sustainable Living, Art, and Natural Design. More of his work appears in recent issues of Puerto del Sol, Mantis, Waccamaw, Western Humanities Review, and Cimarron Review. You can find out more at alechershmanpoetry.com.

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