Darren C. Demaree
Their Human VoiceThere is a raging
bride in each of my children & though they are sweet, kind & loving, they want, god dammit, they want all of the bees to bring them honey & they want the lions to protect them & they want to scream again into a new world where an ocean carries them home when they are done on the beach. I hear all of that rattle inside of them when they tell me that they love me. I am proud they know of a good life, that way it will really burn them up when the nature of all things comes calling. Glass BoxWe put the incredible
in the glass box, because we knew it would be so much fun to shatter it on the driveway. Did you hear it? FloodWe cannot keep our children
in houses, in measured spaces with neighbors they understand when any piano they hear playing is also being used as a seesaw. The randomness is a grant to destroy sovereignty. The silence between the notes is more than jazz. The world is defiant strips we use to be devilish with. The water isn’t coming. The water is here & every measured moment is spent beneath the tide. Fear is repeatedly saying no. |
Introducing CliffsMy children fall down
gently. Even on sidewalks, the scrapes to cuts & the blood that follows, there is hardly any scarring. My children fall down gently. Even in waves they are delivered to the beach. My children fall down gently. So, when the bodies of other children are on the news I do not change the channel, when they talk about death & it’s not the death of our beloved cat, I leave the volume high. I will not frighten my children, but I cannot stop them from forming the questions, from looking at abyss & feeling that they could fall forever from that cliff. I’ve taught them safety. I preached some caution. I’ve let them hear about the amount of blood in the American ocean. My children fall down gently. I say it out loud so that I can hear it when my worst fears creep in from the wind. Stars & ApplesWe find the victims
in time. We find our other lovers outside of the discovering of mortality. Life is. A Note on Light RainSomebody told Isabelle
that God was in the rain & I told her to wait for a good storm before she decided if God had inhabited such flying waters. We’ll go out together & I’ll catch the tree limbs that aim to collect her chest. |
