by Alan Bern
When the Lights Go / Against Your Eyes
after Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs / Built to Spill
So, you want to witness power.
What do you want me to do about it?
I’m not up to much in my leased
300 square feet, on my walks
to the saddest supermarket in town,
the one with the red floppy tube air
guy thing like a strip mall’s used
car mart. They say the owner’s uncle
once nursed dreams of running a candy
shop out of what used to be a
banking drive thru. But the uncle’s
dead now or maybe just moved
away. Regardless, the bulk gummies
are always going stale these days.
I have my own dreams too, you know?
To nail my winter oranges to the ceiling,
one by one, ward off every ghost. To sit
still for enough hours to watch the trees
massage shadow into light and light back
into shadow. And, on the snowy days,
assuming they come this year like
last, to hear a few branches breaking
for lunch: snap, snap, munch. You
want to witness power, probably
something about the oneness of creation
and destruction? Sometimes our days are
much less more than exciting. I’m tossing
the neighborhood possums a handful
of wrinkled marshmallows this evening,
booting puddles in the dusk-empty park.
Alix Perry is a trans writer from the Pacific Northwest. Their work has been nominated for the Best of the Net Anthology and can be found in Kissing Dynamite, The B’K, Rejection Letters, and elsewhere. “When the Lights Go / Against Your Mind” will be included in Alix’s chapbook, Tomatoes Beverly, due out in May 2024 with Naked Cat Publishing. More at alixperrywriting.com.
Retired children’s librarian Alan Bern has published three books of poetry and has a hybrid fictionalized memoir, IN THE PACE OF THE PATH, forthcoming in November 2023 from UnCollected Press. Recent awards include: Winner, Saw Palm Poetry Contest (2022); Honorable Mention, Littoral Press Poetry Prize (2021). Recent and upcoming writing and photo work include: CERASUS, Thanatos, The Hyacinth Review, DarkWinter, and Mercurius. Alan is a published/exhibited photographer, and he performs with dancer/choreographer Lucinda Weaver as PACES: dance & poetry fit the space and with musicians from Composing Together. Lines & Faces, his press with artist/printer Robert Woods: linesandfaces.com. https://www.instagram.com/abobern/ https://twitter.com/AlanBern1/ https://www.facebook.com/alan.bern.1