Saturday, January 14, 2017

ARI BANIAS ~






N A R R A T I V E
                                                          ________________________________



For example, I was once

a sundress on a splintery

swingset in Texas, and the world

was made of yellow grass

struggling to live in sand, sand

beyond our fence, across the street,

sand that could have drowned us

but didn't. Because it was

a border town, there were other

others, so we sort of

belonged. The cacti, religiously

stoic, held promise, as did the mountains,

cast pink in the waning sun.

In Illinois I tried to build a kind of Midwestern

girlhood that failed and failed

into the shape of a flute

I played only high notes on.

I stopped eating

meat. Stopped speaking

Greek. Became an ear.

Now the only one I remember from that time

is the girl who looked like a boy or maybe

was one, who walked the same way home

I walked, same coat, same sneakers,

whom I never once greeted, just repeated

his-her name to myself: Dominick? Dominique?

Massively old trees canopied the cobbled streets.

The houses set so far apart you'd hear neither

argument nor song. Dominick.

Dominique. Not a stitch of recognition

passed between us.



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A R I     B A N I A S
A N Y B O D Y
Norton 2016