Why can’t it ever run backwards,
pause by a fishing hole
and catch a glimpse
of that sixty pound
granddaddy trout,
shiver with the
skinny little kid
jumping into April water,
spy on the old woman
spinning about
on an inner tube
stuck in an eddy,
feel dizzy
watching fall leaves
turn to green to pink
to trees that are bare,
defy gravity,
fly on the backs
of fish clambering
skyward
to the plateau
above the range?
The old woman,
does she ever escape?
my brain does not
focus?
go ahead, aske me a question
an
easy one
I can’t
miss my response:
huh
through a white
thicket between mind
and thought
comes fever,
flu,
nausea,
the shakes, my stomach lining
jitters, agitation crawling
up my throat
trapped
the room has no air
another thought
sifts
through
the porous membrane: not
flu
stuck in an anxious miasma of
too warm, but not hot
can’t achieve hot to
let me go,
the nausea to abate,
to move on no
crest to this tepid flood no
breaking and ebbing ten
minutes of it twenty
no cooling comfort that
perhaps
this
is the last,
my very last
hot flash. Ever.
I’ve had a million
trigger them with
candy, a glass of wine,
hot tea, spicy Mexican,
nothing at all to
hate the feeling of
scorched sand frying
up my veins, under
the skin of my
arms, giving me hot chills,
sweat breaks out on
my shins, hair dripping at
the nape of my neck, knowing
only one hot blast will
end the faulty surge
I want the worst,
ready to breathe again.
A village woman stands at the periphery,
a jug of water balanced on one hip.
She holds her daughter’s hand
until the young girl, bored watching
the scene in front of her,
pulls free to chase a lamb.
The woman waits for her moment
to slip between the important men
uttering prayers, slides an earthen
cup from a fold in her skirts
and fills it with cool water.
The new mother, mouth dry from
laboring in the dusty stable,
welcomes the woman’s gift
with outstretched hands.
She pushes aside the pouch
of gold, a vial of myrrh,
the pungent frankincense, and
pats the empty space beside her.
buffaloed 