What goes up // zori

Alfer Izar

I’ve come to find
Myself
A frayed little edge
Ready to be undone

Alone,
When the sky purples
Finding peace in a flicker of sulfur
And a cloud of smoke
Drinking in a breath –

Mamá sings to herself
Over oatmeal and cigarettes
They collect in a glass tray
Like so many diamonds
She should be wearing

Her bones chafe against overalls
Nails chipped, paint peeled
A reminder that time
Is restless

She tells me not
To fall into the flame
All kindling and easily burned
To ash and dust

I want to be grateful
For half a life
A brother to hold
A father alive
A mother who tries

I wonder what makes
A space of our own
I wonder why
I waste so much time

To feel hopeful
That we have not been lost
Scattered remnants drifting
Through scoured fields
Hidden in rusted sheds

But I greet the day
As much as I ever had
Bowl in hand, oats
Between my teeth

Smoke clings to me
Shelters out the sound
Of raised voices
And hollow threats

Father knows I’m a failure
Lazy as the summer sun
Ambling across the sky
And gone too soon

Today
My bones are heavy
Dragging down through
My skin, and holding me down
Toward the earth

My gnarled hands hold back
Against pulling corn
Cold even in the sweat
Of the afternoon

I break
Away from the branches
Through green and brown
Toward freedom

I think of Sampson
The boy that raged
Enough to burn us all

But even he turned to ash,
Swept away in the wind
Faded to moonlight
Forgotten

I stand out along the wall
High as she is
High as I am
And wonder

There was a place
He used to whisper
That bridged our world
To something more

So eloquently he spoke
Of mountains, of distant shores
I thought them stories
Not truths

What would life be
In a place I never knew?

Was it too much to dream
Of anywhere
But here?

I wander the length
Of my daydream
Toward a boy that
Has cast off the day

I grunt with a sit
My head between my legs
All angles and edges
Too pale, too thin

“Word,” I muster
Another grunt
A man’s welcome
To a boy unknown

“You wanna smoke?”
I offer, lighting a ‘cigarette’
And staring off
To sunset

“Couldn’t stand workin’ either,”
Because I can’t help
But tell the truth

I am an Izar
After all.

Alfer Izar

Who else could I be
Lying where the grass grows
Soft against the pallor of my
Skin, not like my cousins
More porcelain than clay

But I haven’t broken
In spite of the wailing
Nails against my flesh I
Know what it means

To be the swan
All feathers and plume
White above waves
Legs beating below
Effortless

He sees something
In my eyes, perhaps
Now red and scoured
By smoke and truth

Or that gentle touch
Fleeting words hands
Trailing up his back
Lingering along the neck
Teasing

Oh –
We know it’s too good
To think we could just
Up and walk away.
There’s no disappearing
Until we’re earth again.

But I’ve believed
A great many things.
That love is sure and true
That no pain can hurt me
If I am who I’m meant to be

Here I smile and turn on my side
Light as a leaf in the wind.
Outside the walls, huh?
A fantasy. Unreal. Untrue.

But he puzzles and turns
Like they all do because
To free oneself
Is to lose all
You’ve ever knew

I say we go.

He is a fragment
Of the district
Scattered dust at our feet
Stepped on but still
Here, with me.

“It’s a little ways,”
I slouch into a sit
Gangly limbs akimbo.
“Back up on uncle’s farm,”

I offer a hand to help,
A hand to hold, in promise
That no matter what he sees
He’ll know it’s a secret.