Maybe I was eight years old. Maybe nine.
A non-linear life
Perspective
Maybe I was eight years old. Maybe nine.
When the stars moved, I held onto the earth
with both arms splayed wide beside me on the blanket.
I was alone in the back yard: a rarity.
I was alone and fearless in that moment. Also rare.
It was summertime. The air was damp and fragrant.
The stars stared at me. They did not blink, or twinkle.
I don’t recall seeing the moon, nor noticing its absence.
Having the whole sky to myself astonished me.
How is it I never knew the planets moved, before then?
How could I think the constellations would ever stand still?
Flat on my back, I rode the world, held on for dear life—
a wild ride, at a speed that made me dizzy, just a little.
There may have been something like music in the starscape
and the Milky Way was a smooth sheet drifting over me.
In a distant country, we will wake up tomorrow.
Or perhaps it is already awake? If so, it is frightened.
Some years ago, I went to bed one night
and in the morning I had become an alien.
The planet reeled; some rejoiced. Scare
followed me everywhere, menaced my path—
dimmed the lights all day. When a hard
thing happened, its footprints stuck to my toes.
I could wash my hands, but my feet stayed dirty
for weeks: pools of agitation surged up
over and over. It was as if we were being led around
by the nose in a circle. Supposedly it was Thomas Mann
who said that, but nowadays anyone can. We have a license
to repeat ourselves ad infinitum. And so we do.
I never thought I’d make old bones. My youth
was slapdash, freckled with plenty of bad
decisions. Hard to believe these days, but
back then I treated my sturdy framework
like a container whose sole function was
to carry my brain around. Imagine:
I had no reverence for the filters, pumps,
rivers of blood, energy that traveled
miles every day, mute and uncomplaining!
I cared next to nothing for the supple muscles
that would let me summit peaks, survive
a channel crossing if I wanted to swim.
Sweet of life to offer second chances—ramshackle body
with skin, organs, flesh, and every one of my original bones.
Annie Stenzel (she/her) was born in Illinois, but did not stay put. Her full-length collection is The First Home Air After Absence (Big Table Publishing, 2017). Her second collection was a finalist for the Washington Prize at The Word Works. Her poems appear or are forthcoming in print and online journals in the U.S. and the U.K., from Ambit to Thimble, with stops at Atlanta Review, Chestnut Review, FERAL, Gargoyle, K’in Literary Review, Lily Poetry Review, Nixes Mate, On the Seawall, SWWIM, The Lake, and Verse Daily, among others. A poetry editor for the online journals Right Hand Pointing and West Trestle Review, she lives on unceded Ohlone land within walking distance of the San Francisco Bay, and pays a voluntary monthly land tax to help restore Indigenous life.
