ELIMINATION HALF LIFE

by Lauren Schmidt

 

 

Four things. All a body wants. Four things. Food. Drink. Sex. Sleep.

            In no particular order, seemingly all at once. A circuit of strings

                        pulls in and out over the body’s systematic wheel, tugs up buckets

                                    from the well of when and what the body wants: the sweet glaze

 

of butter on a tongue; the crisp sip of wine; the jab of pleasure

            between the legs where generations lodge until summoned;

                        dreams like a soft animal that dies upon waking.

                                    The cool blade of darkness strikes open the folds wherein

 

hide the body’s authentic splendors. April has arrived and the day is given back

            the light we’re owed at the end of four o’clock in winter.

                        Where has that light been but some rehab room

                                    with inconvenient visiting hours? Today, we unclose

 

our eyes where meth has made its bed. The noonday

            will feed our blood a meal of sun, a gulp of blue-sky April rain.

                        Addiction thins without detection. The Resurrection does not happen

                                    once but always here, because the past is chemical-drenched,

 

shoved in a refrigerator drawer of dread keeping it fresh, until.

            Soon we’ll plunge our minds in formaldehyde, or chill them on ice,

                        maybe plant them in soil, or restore them to their systems.

                                    Only in a solar eclipse can Earth see Mercury. Perhaps twelve years

 

is too long for addiction to cast its dark radius, but measure me

            the circumference of the light of morning sun and we can do the math.

                        Smallest planet, too near to the glare, condemned to dusk if only

                                    by comparison. In dreams we catch glimpses of all we will never

 

get to be— the flash of horses on a snow-stroked horizon. Our eyes dull until

            the only light left in the face is the dim flicker of the television,

                        halving the price of knives to two easy payments of $19.95. In the morning,

                                    the body discovers some fifth thing, having lasted through the night.

 

 

Return to table of contents.