Poetry from NER 42.2 (2021)
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Given that the door had to be opened and closed,
the jeans unbuttoned and unzipped, the right hand placed over my mouth
while the left hand held me, held me

there, held me down, I can’t help
but think, again then, then and again, that
suffering, its human position, isn’t entirely random

because someone has to decide, at some point, with purpose
or not, that they’re going to get
what they want or what they tell themselves they want

in order to get what they really want
even if it means hurting another, even if it means hurting them both,
even if they can’t discern what they really want

or that they’re hurting, yet,
until the hurt and the want, lacking
explanation, or eluding it, become indiscernible

from the rest of their suffering, confused for and eclipsing
that suffering, the way the story of sunlight melting wax wings
is confused for the story of hubris and eclipses the story of the child

following the father, as the child was instructed to,
from one dungeon to another
of sky, and given that, given all that followed

when I followed my father
from our dungeon to one of men
not unlike my father and me, I could’ve blamed him

for the him who followed, could’ve maintained the story
that it was neither sunlight nor hubris
that defeated me but descent 

while bystanders stood by, and I could’ve reframed
the defeat as the defect of wings, my descent as my dissent to flight,
and though I did, though I did whenever and however

to suit my schemes, my shifting schema,
I accept, for now, just now, that
in the story it was me, and only me, falling from the sky

to the sea, that as I struggled against my end
I struggled, too, against the fact, falling
and falling, that the end would end, and as I fell

from one blue dungeon to another, I saw
as I fell closer and closer
to the end, the instant preceding the end

when everything could still be changed, in the infinite blue of the water
the infinite blue of the sky
and my face, my father’s face and his, looking back.