Carrizo
from GHOSTWORDS
For Edgar
The submarine’s inside was dim.
— Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, tr. by Will Petersen
in my youth, I hitched a ride to San Diego, across
chirping desert and distant night, I gazed upon a slow-moving
dark, encasing a convex cerulean cavity
each night, I stood beneath the sky for hours mesmerized
at the perplex reformatory, twinkling lights of broken
glass fragments spreading against a glistening sunset
a faceless man behind a lost reflection of glass
at a drive-up window informs me,
too bad, you know nothing of your own past
how far will I walk against the night?
conforming to a captivity I had never realized
some years later, under the kitchen table, they all huddle,
as the rampage continues toward the back of the house,
a clash of debris from the other room recoils
and broken sounds escape the barricade of doors
I remember I returned in 1970,
all they remember is me sitting at the edge of my bed,
with the war still in my hands
Originally published by Poetry Foundation, POETRY Magazine (June 2018)
