Centering
Wasn’t expecting
a navel today. But I
found it held in concrete.
It sat there while I swept.
Down there: I bent to see it
in its lily cup, resting,
all branched, pecked at
as unfamiliar seed.
I saw it move once:
its own chaplet of
chapped lips like
monster sunflowers.
When I thought,
it was of pools.
I never saw mother in one.
And I thought of mine
sprouting infinite prefaces,
baptizing the concentric circles.
The me of me. Heat warms
my speech from those lost,
divorced because of me—
I cannot begin to question
these crosses. I’m learning
now to suck the marrow
of mercy from this font.
Slant
My vision always: sliding sideways—
I do not see the place,
but only hum along.
So digging
brings on its hunches.
I am—now that you speak these words—
brought to become.
I part with others and latch on
to a sight that, once found, moves on.
And I want to do better,
you know that; it’s so clear, my making
myself, on purpose, for me, who is
in some way announcing
(but is unable to do so) in context.
More should be said here,
and when I try,
I cannot retrace it, or find my place—
so I cannot discover the spot
that needs
definitive infinity,
though I did find a bald spot.
Right now, as an example,
nothing special,
but a digger
is what I am, we are,
as much a wiping away
as eyefuls of damp.
Face Value
In a flurry—as simple as a pouch
entering its own gathering.
That I am alone again
is to say that I have not
added all this up along
the cervices and shadows,
the edges and ridges that fall
clear across my face.
It suffers like me, from all the
extremes of focus, the diatribe,
the oblique, the saturated insides,
and I know how much skin
is required here.
Floating through,
I entered a hut where
I washed dishes
and dried them into
square copper coins.
All this before looking
at my hands—and how
they paid.
By then the road went
uphill in blue so dry that
my heel cracked
without my touching it
for the fifteenth time.
At the top I saw a pediment
and another bay opening
onto the sea. So I lifted my arms
and spread my fingers,
keeping the two center digits
together and the outer two apart—
as if this were the only state
of being for bypassing a mind
that can no longer hold its center.
If I have a chance, I hope
to send you a postcard.
Jan Wiezorek writes from Barron Lake in Michigan. He has taught writing at St. Augustine College, Chicago, and his poetry has appeared or is forthcoming at The London Magazine, Yes Poetry, L’Ephemere Review, Words Dance, THAT Literary Review, Leaping Clear, and Cabildo Quarterly. Jan is author of Awesome Art Projects That Spark Super Writing (Scholastic, 2011). He also writes about unsung heroes for The Paper in Buchanan, Michigan, and did so formerly as a freelancer for the Chicago Tribune. Jan holds a master’s degree in English Composition/Writing from Northeastern Illinois University, Chicago.
–Art by Marcos Lomba
Nike sneakers | Aimé Leon Dore x New Balance 550 ‘Red’ — Ietp