[from Killarney Clary
from āWho Whispered Near Meā]
I always daydream good dreams, make imaginable only the best.
I would say that we should leave this place, start over, knowing
change is destined to be right. You would say, āYes, we could do
anything.ā I would tell you I admire you and you would believe
me. The grand confrontations and cozy chatter are in my head
constantly while I try to work or sleep or listen.
I try to think of anything else ā complicated ideas, puzzles, or
money. I would ask Jim to tell me if I make it difficult for him
somehow and he would say I do. Though that kind of clearness is
only fantasy, I pretend it strengthens me, that anyone could tell
me anything and I would understand.
I donāt know if imagining is fair. I donāt know how it works into
me, convincing me of friendship and success, but itās a chronic
music to me now.
The sky would be cold over the city park, but Iād walk alone miles
from there, out here, in Redlands, the āFriendly Place.ā And Iād
wonder as I crossed to the fragrant groves if that long, low boom
was the end of Los Angeles, about my sister, her new baby, and
the uncountable bits of color and talk. Still, I would be telling
them, they would be telling me. Still, someoneās back is turned
and the ugly worry leaks.
Itās a real dream now, the patient one, the one that moans āhold
onā but offers no handle, no features. After straining in the haze,
I carve out old photographs ā of Kathleen and me in matching
bathing suits in Balboa, of Chris the day his glasses were broken.
Am I only juggling, like the cormorant fisherman, the lines
between us, the tangle I mustnāt doze from? āAttend,ā the birds
whisper. āWe quicken.ā But their wings donāt move; their hearts
donāt beat; and the tiny earth attaches to body with invisible
threads to the arguable melody.
~ Killarney Clary
from āWho Whispered Near Meā
gummygunk
titsay
2087
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