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THE WORLD IN ALL ITS GLORY
On the car ride home
from work, I caught from out
the corner of my eye a young girl,
maybe five years old, running.
Her smile broad, bold.
Legs splintering as fast as her little body
would allow, arms flaring akimbo,
cutting with ease through March’s
bitter, astringent chest.
It reminded me again of just
what it was to be young, resilient, carefree.
Not that I have knowledge or understanding
of what it is to be a young girl, no, but
of what innocence is, or rather was.
I wanted to pull the car over,
stop its engine, give that girl a hug.
Drape her body in my flesh,
show her things I’ve seen and known.
Scare her, stain her soul with malignant fear
like a thunderclap, capsizing a lone
fisherman’s boat out on the wharf,
in hopes she’d never forget
to run, jump, sink her teeth into defiance.
Because time and earth are traitors
and the stars should be hauled into court,
brought up on charges
for first degree murder.
Most of all, I wanted
to tell her it’s o.k., things do get better.
Me, insides bent to their knees,
ready, in my outer shell of cold, tempered steal
to fire at the world, tin bullets.
But I didn’t, instead I kept driving.
I didn’t want to lie anymore.
To her, or myself.
I know better. The world, in its selfishness,
the way it breaks men, cradling them
to its chest after having fucked them, like
the way a female praying mantis eats
off the head of its lover after sex, knows better.
When I finally reached home,
I went inside, locked all doors
pulled shut all the blinds, amputating
any and all light. I crawled and hid under
the bed, away from the world
and its loaded gun, taking aim
and laughing with every
shot.
© 2008 C. Allen Rearick
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