Third Season (in-class prompts poem) by Ayla Rogers

Third Season by Ayla Rogers

1.

If October is like summer, then May is like despair—

Like the seasons forgot how to flavor the dish,

With peppered pock-marks and salted wounds,

For pickled pipers and fermenting friends

 To make intoxicating drink.

If October is like the first bite, then it’s May that finished you off.

A memorial wreath, so grandly crafted with such disparate intent,

Decked in streamers and meant for celebration,

The pretty pole became a marker for your grave—

We never knew your name.

If October is for costumes, then May is when I’m stripping down the monsters.

Peeling back the layers

 To make flowers for your wake.

We never knew your name, only 25.

Having just turned the newest bend in the road,

He rode frame bent, and broken

Down ahead the path had darkened—

The wood and green foreboding,

And though he’d taken the advisable precautions,

A helmet could not hold his head,

Could not hold onto anyone’s—

So swiftly slipping to the forest,

Passing the well-lit trees

For the most seductive bend,

Never believing it would be his last.

Rolling on, bend at every bump.

And this, too—

In the fever of our synchronicity,

In the fog of our good times,

I saw it coming—nothing missed.

Like Langoliers were eating up the time

And place and space we all took up—

Like we didn’t have much longer—

Like I could feel the death delusion

Pulling them away from me.

Once, in a dream, I swore that I was drowning.

The air there was weak—

As in, too thin to breathe,

And all the taps had opened

To my brain’s deep reservoirs,

And so I felt no different.

It was more like pressure,

Something like everything imploding—

Like converging on a single cell.

2.  

I never thought life could be

So short,

Or so romantic—

Like the slow dances that never lasted

More than three minutes,

Lest we should grow

Pretty,

Handsome,

Awkward under watch of loving eyes.

There’s always one who feels left out,

Though it wasn’t me this time.

Nor do I believe

It was him, the one who left

Around the same time I did.

Believe me, what happened next

Will make you think me crazy,

If I haven’t thought us there

Myself

Already.

I’ve never been able to believe my size,

Or accept my weakness,

Or the limitations on my form—

Something like an Alice,

With fungus for a telepathic tongue

That lashes the sleeping giant.

You’re all exposed, you know.

The worst thing they ever said to me

Was that the gates were closing—

That we were all caged for the night.

These days, I’m like the bouquet who can’t be caught—

The one I once assembled from old theater props

And majestic ribbons.

Sometimes it’s easier just to twist,

To fall, to bend—

But don’t they realize

By now, I never quit this holding on—

That I can play trapeze

As well as artist.

So long have I been reeling to feel clung to.

Life is hanging

In the balance,

And I wonder

If they’re even awake,

Or if they feel it

With the same intensity

That accompanies insomnia.

Once, in October, I slept remarkably well—

Like vines had intertwined

My limbs, to make a dream-catcher;

Something to tangle all the spiders

I grew too sick to share my bed with.

Bundled in the leafy binding,

Like some gift for brighter months.

But it is not October, it is May,

And may I speak?

Can I open up the windows

On this stale situation?

And could my skin

Sustain the burn?

I don’t know what the summer will bring—

Some sons are unlikely to return.

But I’ll wait—I’ll wait until the seasons change.

I’ll wait—I’ll wait until the fall comes.