Intervals of Lucidity     thgordon

From the dark of the couch, we watched wind
part the curtains. The sunlight invaded
our silences as the beer thinned
and motes etched the gold light and faded.
_____________________

On nights humming when she was ten,
her family went hunting for lines.
In Gainesville the Gators got two.
In Athens the Bulldogs gave five.

She counted the money, again,
and dreamed on its sad, dark designs,
and watched as the highway passed through
marsh scrub, and felt strangely alive. 
_____________________

She turned on her heel and lifted her foot,
exploding her sole out and into the door.
She kicked well—her foot was balletically put,
her balance was perfect—but what the hell for?
_____________________

The ongoing war with her herd
of ghosts left her blank and distracted.
Companionship, and the absurd,
kept nightmares from being, again, re-enacted.
_____________________

Interstate 80 in shreds:
bright plastic trash, dawn, a wooded
rest stop. We begged for a sign,
arcing a coin overhead

into my palm. It was heads.
Susan’s green eyes were half-hooded,
lacking as much sleep as mine.
“So, San Francisco,” she said.
_____________________

Heat, the surreal,
whispers insanity. Crouching in dry, itchy grass,
soft songs of wind curb and space
leaves which recoil to pass
daggers of sunlight. I feel
coolness, the alien, touching my face.
_____________________

Somewhat inexplicably—though, really, who gives a toss?—
her father sprayed bits of his brains on his powder blue suit,
a few minutes (five or ten?) after he’d murdered her mother.
Her brother, who’d raped her at eight, being long since a loss,
this left of her family the dog, neither friendly nor cute.
Five years after that she died slowly…some cancer or other…
So
_____________________

The old biker draws salvos of barks
from the Lab, who has strangely ignored
passing cars.

With a smile, he slackens the cord
to his master and tenderly looks for her love, or its sparks,
his brown eyes full of stars.
_____________________

Mad science is hard.
From hundreds of eyes
you grow, dropped from vines,
at most two will see.

A graveyard leaf-shard
impales lead skies.
It’s fetid. It shines
so delicately.

She smiles and trails out
the agar; Why not
let bugs grow our eyes?

You love her, no doubt--
a shimmering thought,
you chase as she flies.
_____________________

She ran illustrating
the way you should run;
you float on, remaining
aloft until one

uncoiling leg springs you
back into the air.
Fly forward, pass through
and flow. Linger there.
_____________________

From the dark of the couch, we watched wind
part the curtains. The sunlight invaded
our silences as the beer thinned
and motes etched the gold light and faded.