Flush Left | James Diaz | 01 28 23

Aftermath 

I am aware of all the ways
In which I am not aware

Grace is more than a notion 
It is a condition of being in a body

And what is a body?
And are you listening for what the question is really asking?

And are you certain that you don't want to be here anymore? 
Is there perhaps not something more beneath that feeling?

Tell me, who stole your joy? 
In whose hands were held carelessly the things you were made of?

And if you could, would you go back and fight even harder?
You couldn't have won, you know.

It's not your fault 
That the sound of rain triggers something in the body

The unexpected ping
And washout 

And a war is more deadly once the war is over, 
And what is a war

And aren't you here, still
Though the odds were so great against it

I am aware of all the ways
In which no poem, or prayer or hand reaching out in the dark

Is ever enough.

❡

A poem for my father while he's still living 

My father's laughter
How can I make you see
It was just the air we breathed
Tethered us
Dowsing body of sweet joy
Shoulder to shoulder on the worn couch 

Picture us 
Tired and beautiful 
Around the television's warm glow 
Mad TV, Grace Under Fire, House of Buggins,
I want to bottle his laugh 
An amulet of holy sound 
Worn for the rest of my days
Around my neck 

I want him never to leave 
This world we're in 
My father 
Want a heaven full of televisions
God must know this man's laugh 
Must know how much he had to suffer and lose
To find his way to it 

I refuse to imagine a world without this sound 
All around 
Like the blues
It's sung with the whole body 

Corn swaying in the cool breeze
He jumps and he makes that shot from the 3 point line 
And everything is just fine
Not fine, almost fine
beginning, ending, beginning 

My father, lost in the bins
Records from way back when
In his hard working hands
We skip church in search 
Of that sweeter music 

Walk along the road
Honey buns and chocolate milk from the corner store 
Say what you want
That was my heaven 
Right there between pump number one and pump number two

Me and him 
Out along the road

I did not know I was in the holy moment
How quickly time passes 
That you can't go back
To the precise feeling 
Of the two of you 
Up along the road
Searching for the promised land 
In the dusty light of the bins 
A river of sound run through us 
Washing us clean and new 
And whole and home. 

I refuse to imagine a world without all of this.

❡

A big, beautiful dark

There's a tree, Charlotte
A big dark beautiful tree 
Between you and me
Right along the road, little bird,
And we are running 
Still, a tree, and the world,
Charlotte, the world 
Remember how it felt
To stand where once we stood 
Light in the field
Such breeze could carry one
Charlotte, the world, then-
It's not the same world now
Still, there's a tree 
A big beautiful dark in me
The world, Charlotte, a big dark beautiful field, oh little bird, in all that light,
Burning. The world, Charlotte, the world,
Burning in light. 

—Submitted on 01/28/2023

James Diaz is the author of This Someone I Call Stranger (Indolent Books, 2018), All Things Beautiful Are Bent (Alien Buddha, 2021) and Motel Prayers (Alien Buddha, 2022.) Diaz’s work has appeared most recently in Thrush Poetry Journal, Wrongdoing Mag, Sugar House Review, and Rust + Moth.

Editor’s Note: The series title Flush Left refers to the fact that, due to our limited WordPress skills, we are only considering poems that are flush left. Poems already in our Submittable queue that have simple non-flush-left formatting may be considered for publication.

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