Kira Clark lives in Portland, OR. She edits and contributes to Housefire and runs a poetry open mic.
Her poetry was in a book called Heartbeats as well as the September issue of Unshod Quills. She writes and sings songs out in the world that she wants to be described as genuinely heartbreaking. She volunteers at the IPRC and types letters to her friends on her typewriter.
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Either Way it is Terrible
(For Jim)
Here is how it happened.
There was a loud noise,
a bang, and
then a birth.
The paper mill does not close.
The paper keeps on coming.
White blank paper hangs over me
like a puppet sky that clips my head
from time to time.
Failure is not escapable, but
he sees someone else in the mirror now,
after fresh air and publication.
It is the loneliest thing,
dying, and also the loneliest thing,
watching someone die.
He says his wound hurts,
the bone.
Sit up, I say.
The changing of the sheets.
The changing of the life.
The life not changing ever but ending.
The T.V. helps, the westerns.
I buy him a horse, but
the sickness is already a herd of
crazed horses, galloping on
and towards and above his forehead.
Pushing the pads of my fingers,
into his loose and hanging flesh,
my hands dancing on snow.
Collapse, collapse.
Helpless in that
I cannot enter him,
and create an area that
is not pained.
If you are there then you are not
Here we are, and
I don’t know what to do.
There is shaking.
We’ve got these staples to work with,
not much else.
They make indentions in our skin.
This is after the idea of mother died
but it is before the weight of myself
caused everything to collapse inward,
a small backwards inflation.
It is after the glass was thrown but
before I packed up and
after I drew a picture of God.
The moon is a circle over our heads
but we can only see
a portion through the window,
how we slice things up like that.
I was told not to think about longing,
but what else is there because
I want to either die today or live forever,
and the latter is not an option.
Both of us know that.
I am in need of anything that does not swell,
something that stays put in the same position,
and the same frame of mind
with the same relative size,
like the house,
which is the same as it was, the house that
you are pacing around while night
is coming down on us, haunting our backs.
I watch you move and pace.
Your body needs oiling.
There is night all around our faces now.
You are pacing.
Always the pacing.
Take the time to truly convey the feeling.
The feeling that was you and I,
and then you and I in the night,
and then you and I being nothing.
Still the pacing.
The house is the same as it was, except
if you are there at the kitchen table
sobbing, then you are not in my room grabbing
my face that is surrounded by daylight,
and if you are there at the kitchen table
sobbing and you are saying that life is
above ground, then you are not
in my room grabbing my face that is surrounded
by daylight, saying that shovels can be musical.
If you are there sobbing and rioting,
then I am experiencing movement through the object
that is giving up so
teach me how to take an ax in my hands,
won’t you?
I have worn this dress before,
and
Everything
(I don’t understand what they are saying outside my window)
Is
(I don’t know what they are talking about in my living room)
As
(the deer are running from the headlights)
It has been, except apart.
Still the pacing,
then the birds make an awful noise
and what else is awful
besides this bed that
has grown too bony, so
always the pacing, never the
pale skin in my face as you were hunched over there,
the moment before you unbuckle your belt.
The moment before you are inside.
The moment before it all.
I am trying to be there, but if
her arms are thin against you
then all of this is the same,
like the house,
as it has been,
except apart.