10 July 2007 | Vol. 7, No. 2

some hazards of the course

by TONY MANCUS

I wish I was an audience

unto myself. Scattershot as it were

with my left eye out of focus, drawn in on a bitter

bird pecking away, some scrap left on the windowsill.

Can the grammar concerns and all that clapping.

I wish I could make you come

near, not worrying about fish or what your father

might think about the size of whatever's in anyone's pants. Our skin

peeling back like winter's slow walk across a continent. The land

grown stiff, itchy under all that pale hair.

I wish light

could be manufactured, the color

of when we were always waking—the color

of right before being born. Fearful, our voices still

unsure of what they'd be when they slipped

out from us.

Our gasping and crooked faces.

I wish we could make a baby that was

silent, but those children turn out strange.

I wish there was a tiny ambulance

in my ear

to rush the words

I hear you calling me

to the hospital. Little siren,

little angry driver coursing the canal.