the television era (rev 3)

1.
Do you remember when you were five, back in the television era, when you stood in front of the TV screen and switched the picture off and on and off again, watching the reflection of your face magically appear and disappear in the glass with each turn of the knob, while the real story collapsed into a staticky white dot that quickly blinked out into blackness? Do you remember the curled brown backs of fallen leaves crumbling against the curb as the hurry of passing cars whooshed them off dashboards and back seats? Do you remember things slowly getting worse, each season wiped blank, predicate and cause-and-effect rustling like birds’ nests untwining in the maple trees that canopied our street? Barely old enough to tie our shoes, we tried to grab hold of worry swirling in mid-air, the mitten-muffled clap-clap as we chased dying things in the wind, each fragile part of speech I caught broke like cracked ice into a stutter, and you laughed because I was so serious and bedecked my red stocking cap with a sheaf of leaves stripped to their useless stems.

2.
Tonight, I can’t pull the truth through the spaces in between snowflakes. Everything that is not sky turns to sticks and is struck by a wind I can see but not feel. I open the windows and confess what I love but should not love. In such a dusk as this, I don't want to live unadorned. Standing in the yellow light by the back door landing, I tilt my head back, gather a mouthful of snow, and pray, let me swallow magic.

3.
And no, I cannot free the bird trapped underneath my skin even though its wings beat me into speech, these shattered lines, my mouth crackling with static as I burn away the kiss that turned into lover and then other. It is never so quiet as when you pass me by. I press the ellipses of my fingerprints on your shadow. You might pause, feel something, look back. And then turn away.