Second Drink
………… For my grandfather, Michael Giovio, 1920-1997
………… On my pillow bit by bit waking,
………… suddenly I hear a cicada cry—
………… at that moment I know I’ve not died,
………… though past days are like a former existence,
………… I want to go to the window, listen closer,
………… but even with a cane I cant manage.
………… Before long like you I’ll shed my shell
………… and drink again the clear brightness of the dew.
………… ..—Xin Oiji, “Start of Autumn: “Hearing a Cicada While Sick in Bed”
On your pillow, bit by bit waking,
….. dreams of playground slides, highways, swatches of sky
all scatter into the fume of your first breath, waking.
Bit by bit, on your pillow, you wake
and suddenly you hear a cicada cry
….. from its flaky tomb. Caked in green, a fresh buzz breaking
the silence of an eight o’clock light, a clear cicada cry.
Suddenly you hear a cicada cry,
and at that moment, you know you have not died.
….. Now, an armada of cicadas, in apocalyptic quaking,
soars from the trees that have not died.
Neither, at that moment, have you.
though past days are like a former existence,
….. cast in a tomb, gilded in aching
like the words of a song that only in memory exists.
Future days, too, are like a former existence.
You want to go to the window, listen closer
….. to the cicada’s rise, their resurrection, they’re remaking,
but your legs cannot bring you closer.
You want to go to the window, listen closer,
but even with a cane, you can’t manage.
….. Never in your daughter’s dreams are your legs forsaken—
they’re your wings, your wheels, your dream’s imagining—
but even with a cane, you can’t manage.
Before long, like the cicada, you’ll shed your shell—
….. your apocalyptic limbs regaining, reshaping—
stronger now than used to be. Strong like the cicada, you’ll shed your shell.
Before long, like the cicada, you’ll shed your shell
and drink the clear brightness of the dew.
….. You’ll drink again the clear brightness of the dew,
and bit by bit, you will wake.
by Lauren Marie Schmidt
from Filthy Labors
Curbstone Books, 2017