It Could've Been - for Pammie It could've been soundless,
seamless, tasteless. It could've been placed in
Toledo, Terre Haute, maybe Baton Rouge. It could've been a man
restoring a 67 GTO or his wife hoping for bills
in the mail to prove their existence. It could've been a whisp of
air from a vagina after sex. It could've been abstract: a
red dot floating in black fabric. It could've been given a
name, real or fictitious. It could've been a daughter
of a baseball flunkie, mechanic, ex-junkie or her mother who dove from a
great height to rest listless and bloody in a heap. It could've been a child in
hand me down clothes her hands pounding the top of a hand built crib. It could've been trained: sit
here, poop here, wipe from front to back. It could've been barely
visible foursquare lines and a child who still knew where to
spike the ball. It could've been the soft
swell of a young girl's chest her fingers moving over sore skin. It could've been a father
drinking at home, his pockets not as deep as his whiskey
glass. It could've been two voices
not knowing how to fit part A into slot B, move the wrench of words into position,
tighten conversation into something workable. It could've been a fan
blowing warm air on sticky skin, or a makeshift curtain stapled
to a window, or even how a person's want
becomes the wide expanse of eyesight, fingertip. It could've been a woman
sleeping with her eyes open. It could've been about a
person who wanted to die so badly she climbs the bulwark of concrete and
barbed wire to grab 1300 volts or perhaps she could've been
sitting window side thinking about focus or hospitalization, and how her psychiatrist expected an
answer that afternoon. It could've been her landlord
on the sidewalk below climbing onto the hood of
her VW, stripping to his boxers while she hears
trumpets play and watches his penis bump the flannel fabric like a fist
under a blanket. It could've been a penis
rising to the standing ovation of a small crowd then being snapped off as if it were a
dead limb. It could've been a woman
telling her doctor that she needs to work on her logic. Simple logic. It could've been about a
doctor turning to the blackboard, writing 25.
Simple logic, and then asking her What are the 24 more important things you
need to work on? Originally published in Slipstream |
