NATE MAXSON
★ ★ ★ ★
POETRY
Diagram For A Rain Machine
Because I cannot pose the problem anymore simply than I have been doing,
Think of it like this:
Most birds just drop out of the sky when it’s time
That wouldn’t be so bad
A mid-flight apparition
To the people standing around me in the subway, or maybe in the supermarket when it happens, I’ll be gone
The lights blinked and one less person stood waiting in the queue, just like that
It’s a blueprint for an occultation
And I bet the terrorist, also in the center of the crowd, feels the same way
Dynamite strapped heavy to his chest, cocooned briefly in the breath of others who don’t know what’s coming
I bet
I’ll feel it too
On a street some dark morning, fog coming in from the river, spring lights approaching 6am
Walking by a house just down the block from where I’m living now,
Where I’ve not lived for many years
A child’s orange plastic toy car in the yard catching rain on its knee-high rooftop
Because I cannot pose the problem any simpler
Because learning about how caterpillars turn into butterflies, through an obliteration, when we’re very young
This tells us, this told us
It’s an outside view, a godlike, or god light, perspective
How a raindrop counts the days in motion
Nate Maxson is a writer and performance artist. The author of several collections of poetry, he lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
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Yes, lovely. Worthy of a second read. Nate gets better and better . Thanks for posting.
Vivid, I can feel his youthful angst in such classy lines and images.