Try the Clouds
I levitate off the ground,
but my eyes are on you.
How you remain a stone,
how you can’t be lifted.
That’s the world
I want, one stuck
to the Earth for good.
In your presence I’d settle
for a tiny island,
a small piece of dirt we call ours.
I’m not sure what you’ll say –
go away, I’m in the air,
therefore unreachable.
Or that I should try clouds,
which hide
ingredients
for lightning, fold jets
inside their blue weight.
In that case I don’t desire
to breathe. I hold my breath
until my fat skull fills
with air.
I lift off
toward space, the stars
ready to hang me with lights,
moon shaped like a tombstone.
***
One Star
I am born. That’s the highlight.
Everything else stale bread,
crust not cut off, full of bologna.
I should learn to love Coming
Attractions, the worsening of vision,
high cholesterol gumming up
my blood, miracles of shrinking
as I try to recall my bones.
Except, I know at the end
they’ll be replaced by stones.
The ground will be opened
for me, so I can join the dirt,
place myself quietly in the dark.
No one will watch me then,
a film that earned no reviews,
not even the love of one person
who’d kiss me when I fell away.
I will tell angels this was one star,
and lord, I was being generous.
They won’t dress me in blue robes,
or outfit me with silver angel wings.
Instead, I’ll run the projector,
showing the image of Earth,
deep oceans, shining lands.
***
Telling the Myth
The snake travels on its belly
through crisp leaves to somebody’s foot.
It bites a heel, injects poison,
so the man collapses in the dirt.
His lover will kneel in pain, as if life
would not continue without his breath.
She knows where the underworld is,
between two apartment buildings,
inside a grate that leads to Hades.
When she arrives, she sings
a heavy metal song that stings
the master with happiness. Spirits
around them bang their heads, shoot
devil signs that glow in the ice.
Her lover is escorted by Hermes,
patron of burnouts. He says to her
there is no looking back till they reach Earth.
But she is anxious to see. She doesn’t
know whether to believe him.
They nearly make it to the grate, but nerves
get the best of her. Her lover glows in
surface light until she views him, then
suddenly he is no longer there.
Screaming lightning, her chest is fried.
She falls dead.
But when she reaches the layer of hell,
she does not recognize him, nor him her.
They wander around the river, drinking
each time it seems like they’ll remember,
that they can embrace even in this dark.
***
A Tenth of My Normal Size, I Fly on a Bird
Don’t bring me near the cat
because you think you can fly away.
I’m nothing but a doll to you,
but I have human skin and eyes,
the kind of breath that’s surrender.
My balled-up fists hurt nothing,
as I ride in the air, stuck
to your feathers with my legs.
Forget about hunting dogs
that wish to put you in their mouths.
Or the foxes swirling tails
around the bushes you eat from.
Remember only that I’m here
and I deserve protection,
a flight through all danger,
even if you wish to risk your life.
When I dismount your wings,
I will hide from evil creatures
creeping across the ground.
Threats you don’t care about
as you angle toward the clouds
and meet your own darkness:
birds of prey seeking to shred you,
leaving sprays of feathers.
***
I Believe in the TV Family
They quickly resolve a problem
that wasn’t one before, their
special episode proving Mom
knows best, Dad is a doof.
I put myself inside one,
and I’ve never known real
agony, the kind that upends
all apple carts, shows
worms in each fruit.
My bedroom
is clean, my calendar marked
with football practice, prom,
graduation, the blanket
neatly fold next to a pillow
which looks as soft as
marshmallow.
When I speak it’s with a joke.
A laugh track rises around me,
the shelter for grandmother’s death,
grief I almost feel.
At the end of the show
I feel the pull back to Earth.
Where no camera eye
sees what I am. Where I’m
invisible, even to those I love.
*****
Donald Illich has published poetry in journals such as The Iowa Review, Fourteen Hills, Map Literary, Passages North, and Cold Mountain Review. He won Honorable Mention in the Washington Prize book contest. He recently published a book, Chance Bodies (The Word Works, 2018).