Chestnut Shadows

Right before sunset

when lights are swimming

like copper-colored fish

near the water’s surface

a bitter desire for freedom used to heat me up.

 

I  ran in the wheelchair

with my hardened hands instead of soles,

keeping my life directly in my palms,

wandering on the alley with the morgue,

swallowing chunks of air

embalmed with chestnut flower.

 

Everything guffawed around me:

the patients laughing because I was cripple,

the nurses indignant because I vomited in my bed,

the children from the pediatric section,

the empty pots cast to the ground at the refectory,

the jars on the upper morgue window

filled with didactic brain substance...

all of them were yellow of laughter

like sick leaves.

 

I turned the wheels faster and faster,

always on the alleys’ center,

bending for some leaf

like a palm with contorted fingers

under the holy sun.

 

I had forgotten to cry,

I had forgotten I never laughed

wholeheartedly.

Reviews

[Marie]

This is a depressing but startling powm. I especially like the phrase "I ran in the wheelchair with my hardened hands instead of soles"....says so much...

[Cristina Moldoveanu]

Thanks Marie, some things and some poems are sad, thank you very much for your comment.