unspooling, spoiled, science
What a debris of days, in which
all the electrical sockets blink out
like fireflies, the snow refreezes
as slate, and the rock salt grates underfoot.
What a poor excuse for serendipity—walking
in the freezing rain, downloading archived
napkin notes, flipping all the breaker switches
until the light flickers back. The black dog upstairs
has returned and wanders in circles on the floorboards
above my head, waiting at the door for someone
to come home. I read about corporate uprisings,
about the homogenous exiled bands we call
civility. I cannot leave the house without my ring.
The clock runs three minutes fast, and ninety-eight days
too slow. I speak of experimentation, democratic transition
and the desperate, desolate hope for something that hangs
over the precipice of tomorrow. There is, once again,
an unexpected snowfall, which I watch, insomniac,
when I wake too early. In these dawn hours,
the beauty is dreamt and unspoiled, before the sleet comes,
the snow plows, and the guttural grating of the neighbor’s
near-dead truck. By early afternoon the small birds
hide under my sedan with their ice-covered wings. A
muted voice floats through the plaster walls, a door slams,
and I beg the world for something—anything—more than this.
nocturne
that summer we were
all singing Appalachia
as the moon rose and the
stars settled in. do you
remember setting our
old wishes on fire, cradling
the dying lighter in the wind?
I recall the flames licking towards
my fingertips, the fog reaching tendrils
toward the exposed skin of my
neck. full moon rituals, really
only an excuse for us to spill
into the mountain blues, remarking
at all the unfamiliar constellations. saying
words like: release the old wounds.
or: fuck, it’s cold. curling our bodies
toward each other for the warmth. all
of my old wishes burned but one. I
let the ragged bone-white shard of paper
get swept away in the wind.
I remember the bruised evening peaks,
the smell of granite in my hair, tracing freezing
fingers through open windows, my voice lost
in the rush. I remember the mirrored mercury
of headlights in animal eyes, the desperate click
of the cigarette lighter under her numb fingers
before the sparks were snatched away. now I
know that love is every fire that we leave
behind, that these winds put out for us. that
there are things that we will never be able
to release, even with the help of fire and full
moon. and at the winding close, looking back
at it all, I am certain that we are never hungry
enough for magic when we have it.
still
Daffodil nausea, crow spring hilarity,
your eyelashes, your teeth, cotton-ball
consciousness, nonetheless, we celebrate.
I hold this misery at a distance, while the
coming rain builds headaches behind my
cheekbones, and Tuesdays move in like
the tides. I wonder if this is what divine
punishment looks like, and if it is, what
I did to deserve it. and it’s not just
the TV news covering it; it’s people on
the ground. Even the cherry blossoms
can’t make me happy anymore. Peanut
butter hallucinations, collarbone-heavy
humidity, the brakes squeal—I hate the
sweetness, I hate the waking, I hate the
endless grey sun seeping into the evening,
in which we remain unconsoled by the bleary
absence of a sunset. I wonder: can this haze
last forever? Warbling voices surround
me in snatches of greyscale glee: I can’t believe
he didn’t forget me/We have a real problem
with turnovers this season/It’s not supposed
to be political/I think I’m better prepared
to have those kinds of conversations, now/I just want
to hike the Appalachian Trail and eat cheese/In the end
I won/No, nuclear war will not solve climate change/Does
your main character syndrome fade, ever?
Such nonsense symphonies, a shrieking and sullen
early spring, serotonin-starved, lucid dreaming through
lecture, ankles tied up in fishing line, tulips burned black
to the center. I rise feeling like each day is the last, like
someone carved my lungs from marble, like this world
is a carousel, and I’m just eager to stop spinning.
*
Megan Busbice is a poet and fiction writer from Holly Springs, North Carolina. She is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she studied English and International Politics, as well as the recipient of a Fulbright grant to teach English at a university in Madrid, Spain. Megan’s work has appeared in the literary magazines Cellar Door and Rainy Day.
New Critique 