Fjords Reviews

Anonymous

      Because the sun sits on the horizon
I imagine a piano. I hate myself
      because I never took piano lessons. I
            hate that I
      didn’t just see you
at the Coke machine, or walking through the front yard
I know you played in once upon a time. Once in
      time. Upon the green
            leaves of grass.
      Because the sun hovers like

      a guitar’s note, I believe I can make
something like a symphony because the light, right
      before it leaves the day makes me, for
                  one second,
            able to admit
alcoholics do what we can when we can. And
when we can’t, we hide behind our eyes. People like
      us cast shadows when
            there’s no light.
      I am on the edge of asking you

      if you ever wish you could be the sound
a guitar-string makes the moment the finger leaves.
      I am a man you love to want, love
            to want to
      want, and I’m a man
who wants to say what he wants, a man afraid of wants.
Not for the part about the girl, but for the end.
      There’s always a girl.
            There’s always
      an end. You told me once you’d be

      the sound a doorstopper makes when it’s flicked.
I keep that under my hat. I keep the idea
      of love folded in my wallet, where
            I keep the
      invisible sounds
I’ve accumulated in the last thirty years. You
said, once, I should sit, write out my misguided head.
      I said I can’t fight
            anymore.
I hate it. It takes me out of
      everything. You said, Stop then; that easy.
I know, I said, I know, but I am not an easy man.
      And I hate that about myself. I’m
            forever
      walking a city
in my mind, a cold in the air acting as if
my Members Only jacket’s not leather, and I’m
       never looking up
            because I
      would have to leave my head. I am

      forever walking with the knowledge that
someone somewhere is playing the piano I
      never learned to play. In the moments
            when I can
      get over myself,
I can smile, and when I do I remember once
how I stood in a room lined with strangers and said
      my name, I didn’t know
            whether that
      city in my mind had a road

      leading back home, if I had a home,
and I remember thinking I was less concerned
      with concepts than concretes, remember
            feeling that
      difference in trusting
my thoughts and knowing I can enjoy them without
trusting them. The thoughts living in my heart are the
      least dependable
            thing I have.
      But this city I walk through, this

      cold in my fingers as I reach for my
cigarettes and lighter, these brown shoes beneath me,
they’ll just be fictions if I can’t walk
            in the door,
      take off my jacket,
unwrap my scarf, see home through the heat turned water
on my glasses, which I will drink forever if
      I can keep smiling
            when I can’t
      understand forgiveness’ shape.

by Christian Anton Gerard