William Doreski

Asides in April

Maybe I left my childhood
in the Middle Ages when many
believed the Pope a mummy
encased in the purest gold.
Maybe I left it smoldering
in the ash of burned witches.
Maybe I left it bayonetted
at Antietam, crying for Mother.

I remember a fringed curtain,
a church framed in my window,
two pastels of Parisian scenes,
green and violet auroras
unfolding on a chilly night.
Chocolate got wormy. Ice cream
fell from the cone and splatted
with a sigh on filthy sidewalks.

I press my forehead to the mirror
to merge my various selves.
Splashing naked in the river.
Picking scraps and shards of metal
along the half-abandoned railroad.
Prowling schoolyards gusty with angst.
Maybe I dropped something gleaming
in the ryegrass behind the barn.

Maybe if I fall deeply enough
asleep I’ll plumb a silence
darker than the well my uncle
drilled into living bedrock.
The prologues are over. Act one
opens in a moment, if only
I remember the lines I scrawled
in crayon on the classroom wall.