Incarnate
Douglas Cole
In another age he would have been
a riverboat gambler or a high school teacher
instead of an interstellar body-smuggler.
You can see the line of connection.
In one story he’s waiting for a call from his mother.
You can feel the tragedy of his life
like low-grade radiation
as part of him wanders off to zero gravity.
You’ve never seen someone weep so much for a dog.
If you could reach into your pocket
and pay off your debts
with drops from your liquid gold soul
just before that kid tags your camper with a pi sign--
I’m talking to you because you’re the only one
who listens,
though you open the door for a disembodied
out-on-spring-break speaker in tongues,
hidden under the surface of I give up.
And that is a beautiful moment
when he maneuvers the body into the hold
and you fly from the eye,
all that ballast thrown off, all that open space
to expand and want nothing with,
your mind in the abyss and your imagination
folding a paper boat to sail off in--
I say the world is your oyster, my shadowy companion,
and I’ll stake your next venture
if you’re up for chasing after
a lucky strike.
a riverboat gambler or a high school teacher
instead of an interstellar body-smuggler.
You can see the line of connection.
In one story he’s waiting for a call from his mother.
You can feel the tragedy of his life
like low-grade radiation
as part of him wanders off to zero gravity.
You’ve never seen someone weep so much for a dog.
If you could reach into your pocket
and pay off your debts
with drops from your liquid gold soul
just before that kid tags your camper with a pi sign--
I’m talking to you because you’re the only one
who listens,
though you open the door for a disembodied
out-on-spring-break speaker in tongues,
hidden under the surface of I give up.
And that is a beautiful moment
when he maneuvers the body into the hold
and you fly from the eye,
all that ballast thrown off, all that open space
to expand and want nothing with,
your mind in the abyss and your imagination
folding a paper boat to sail off in--
I say the world is your oyster, my shadowy companion,
and I’ll stake your next venture
if you’re up for chasing after
a lucky strike.
Douglas Cole published six poetry collections and the novel The White Field, winner of the American Fiction Award.