You are old. You do not mind
any more than you minded
being young. It’s exciting not to hold
what you know so fiercely. You can learn
some new things. Pre-sexual joy returns
uninterrupted by sex, and memory doesn’t burn
hotter than it should. The other old men
were wrong. The exact unformable thing you
know better than to expect is here, like a poem.
‘Deserve’ has nothing to do with dying. Those gone
are with you again. Your body cooperates like a witness.
Your mother stays up late, your father rises early.
They love going to the movies, and talking with you
afterward. Your brother hates when anyone in the car
disagrees with his reckless devotion. You are silent,
you will recognize this thick window as something formidable
to be suddenly loved, as you must suddenly break
the water’s skin to reach the actual world:
your mouth moves you talk to yourself and your cat
creeps into your birthday shivers near you
catch someone’s eyes and touching like bandits touch
a night you understand less than beautiful scenes
you’ll love into years begin with hurting someone
you can be anything you goddamn please
your thoughts don’t leave as pretty as smoke
outside a window you plant your house around
shame you don’t listen to natural music
when something hurt right you became
so thankful for a moment you forgot every time
you spoke the rest of your death pushed through
porous teeth straining a leash you could chew
the sky expanding violent expanding as love left
power could always have gone both ways
like anyone trembling the straight line time
shakes in all directions eclipsing patience
in the arms of another lover you did not
imagine even with love in front of you
there is nothing left of what you are not
even this will end you know stillness
but your hand has never been still
like anyone trying you could fall in love
with such a wonderful fool and die as undeservedly as this
the movie beginning as your brother
settles in the dust the light
turns over your father your mother speaks
late at night you hear her
your father’s beard scratches your forehead
his warm face holds you he asks are you
a bad kid?
are you going to get close enough
to see the whole world asprotagonist
when you are gone will you find yourself
everywhere?
the previews
never end
you sit here together
the previews
never end.
Soren Stockman’s poems have recently appeared or are forthcoming in The Iowa Review, the PEN Poetry Series, Tin House Online, The Literary Review, H.O.W. Journal, Bellevue Literary Review, and Narrative Magazine, which awarded him First Place in the 2013 Narrative 30 Below Story and Poetry Contest. He works at the NYU Creative Writing Program, and as Program Coordinator for Summer Literary Seminars in Vilnius, Lithuania.