Dying of Thirst, Surrounded by Water by Henry Israeli

Someone said, you can’t overestimate the body’s desire for eternity.

Dying of Thirst, Surrounded by Water

by Henry Israeli

There we were, walking the line along
death’s precipice, mother trying on hats
in heaven’s department store.
Across the street, whores whistled
bitter schlaffmusik to lull the actuaries
into hypnotic grief. We tried
calling home but the telephone wires
had been ripped out by raccoons
or the government. I held the last
dime in my sweaty palm. Father had
a way with words, commanded them
stand tall as corn in August.
Since he’s gone there’s been a loud
silence, the hum of climate control
shifting the direction of my thoughts.
Bread refuses to rise even when
I strum the national anthem
along my pelvis. Always there,
always forgotten, my coccyx
connects me to what we always were.

*

Maybe it’s the rain or the spring
in the heel of my shoe or the cicada’s
shed overcoat alone on a lawn chair,
but something’s been telling me,
whispering in my ear, dance, or maybe
it’s once, or maybe dunce. Fire’s music
whorls through the wild conifers,
spreading the latest conspiracy
darkening the dark web.
How much of the soul is metaphor?
Someone said, you can’t overestimate
the body’s desire for eternity.
A baby’s finger clenches like its pulling
a trigger. Is its first instinct to kill?
I turn away in disbelief.
Chatter like fat in a flame.

*

Corpses burst out of their wooden pods
claw their way to the surface,
and forage the forest floors for guns.
I hide among the leaves and needles,
dreaming of another kingdom, another time.
Is this what trauma does? A bed might be
a bomb, a bomb might be a bed,
or maybe just a briefcase left innocently
by the embassy door. I have so many keys,
I can’t remember what they’re for.

The dead sit hunched, nodding in agreement,
emptying their pockets, dragonflies drying
transparent wings on their naked skulls.
One pulls a bullet from his temple, sets
it down on a stump with a little tap.
There’s always an eighty-four percent chance
of winning Russian roulette
     for whoever goes first.
 
*
 
The crowd celebrates the return of
the father. Kismet, they say. Savior,
they whisper. Messiah, they think.
Each hair on my head extends its
root down into my brain where the masses
gather, staring in wonder at the dome of sky.
Mother holds a box of sea salt. Kosher,
of course. That’s the spirit! Spiritus mundi?
Make like a rabbit and burrow deep,
she says. I dig up their graves but find
only empty orange shells.
A jet plane stitches the sky closed.
I throw another stick in the fire.
Father says, stop crying
     and smile for the camera.

Read our interview with Poet of the Week, Henry Israeli, wherein he discusses using poetry as a bridge between past and present. About this, he says:

We’re all ancient artifacts with genetic material dating back from our parents to the world’s first single-celled organisms. The same could be said about writing. There is no present in writing. By the time we’ve written down a word, the present has past.