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Openin' Statement
by Alan Soldofsky

It's not regret
but the weight of the heat
that keeps me from moving. It's not my body
afloat on the barge of the bed. It's not my eyes
swimming to reach sight of the shore.

Nor is it that I didn't recall
what I was doing. That is how words stain
the particulars. How I must have looked
as her lips moved, how I believed
my skin as it burned like a lantern.

That she was the one who wanted
me, and the fragrance of honeysuckle
infused the frayed rumors
of summer. I didn't know the scent
then, the long, luscious, sweet decay.

I refused to discern as twilight came
on its tide of ashes, that my voice
was thin, disrespected, less
than a rasp from behind the door.
Did I actually believe

my watery, circuitous explanations?
It was so easy to confuse midnight
with noon in the bright ruins of the office
where sleep is buried. And love writhing
on the altar of the tabernacle.

I was seized by a desire to hang on
to my house, my mouth dry as driftwood.
My fear of loss worse than the losing.
I remember the smell
of roses, the cleanliness of cut grass.

The glory of early mornings
after working out. Meetings with you.
Now all hope of privacy given up
as strangers scuttle back
from the iron fence, amused.

I couldn't exactly say then
that I refused to recognize the truth.
What I wanted so much to do,
and didn't. The words
parsed and measured. My history

of embarrassment preserved.
The sad proclamations,
the blind hours of pleasure
spent as the contrite sun wheeled
through the sky it burnt its trail across.


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