And When Darkness...
John King Allman
No, no, no. I said the light, then the wind, then the sound
of the blast. All the cells in his body obeyed that atomic
scramble. When he yawned, the trees on Welfare Island
bent toward him, then away. The sky over the East River
roiled higher and higher, as pigeons tumbled and sparrows
went flat as magazine covers. His life was after all a text.
Somewhere on page 30, the color bled, people were seen
exiting a theater, the sudden steaming rain soaked their
matinee shirts and ran down the bare arms of women.
I said the light, then the wind. The risen fire of his eyes.
The silence in space, as satellites wore out their orbits and
plummeted, and what arrived was cinder and the mangled wires
of speech. Though he could still talk. He could still wear out
the silk of your hearing. The praise you believed in. The fitful
joy that inhabits the movement of your hand, your slender grasp
here giving way, where he never let go. And when darkness
scarred the childish light, he never likened it to evil. Or penniless
fright. What came was always. And what took him away.