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L. J. Sysko: Relational Identity

March 8, 2022 by PBQ Leave a Comment

The car salesman tells me about safety,
quipping, After all, we’re just bags of water,
and I have to steady myself because he got me.
That’s the line. That’s what’ll do it—
glib characterization of mortality
makes me hot, and even though
he’s not attractive, to my eye, I’m imagining
reclining with him beneath the moon roof
and testing the limits
of this award-winning safety cage.

I’m exaggerating, of course, as I’m wont to do,
but there’s a thin scrim between
us and infinity anyway
so why not mistake the gas and brake
occasionally? See what a little adrenaline
does for the hairdo.
Like a ‘50s style coiffure
mussed after clandestine sex.
What’s more hubristic than a beehive?
A touch croissanty in the mid-section—
cantilevered, lacquered layers,
the acme of mid-century
post-industrial misogyny?
That woman’s going nowhere fast.

I love this absurd life,
how irony blinks when I change lanes,
warning me despite
necessity’s manifest agenda
that I keep going.
DANGER!
My nervous system shrieks,
and I’ve stopped hushing it
with antidepressants and such because
I couldn’t even feel the steering wheel—
too amenable
to turn my head and check mirrors.
I’d just put it in Reverse
and hope for the best.

There’s an in between,
and what’s printed
on my license proves it.
Says here:
I’m me,
living in this place, looking like this,
now.
So, I don’t really need
absolute calm
to see clearly or the wife and mother
roles listed to verify my import
though they are
flagship features.

One bag of water to another—
I pour some into them,
they pour into me, and we share
the way the weather cycle looked in 7th grade
when I learned it between units on geology and trees.
I knew those cloud formations cold
and how mica glinted, the way a geode formed,
and that female gingkoes smell
when they shed their leaves and berries.
That’s how we know it’s fall

Filed Under: Issue 101, Poetry 101 Tagged With: L. J. Sysko

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