FROM THE NOOSPHERE EXIT
By David Rodriguez
erase a day
though the next I’ll plumb
pooling memories of this enamored drunk
calling his ex in brutal dishonor,
trying to work toward
forgiveness
and practice the atomization distraction technique
I studied and succumb to.
in 1826 a mother could relax
reading Hannah Webster Foster,
oblivious to the gravitational waves
smoothing her wrinkles,
her sandalwood rocking chair
tipping.
and now...we know the depth of the invisible,
the illness of quiet days,
and I do everything to avoid them:
the only infinite in oak barrels,
the only wave in amber breaks.
my mother worries more than she used to,
and I read only one
book,
a bourbon-blurred half memory,
my good life in the blank.
David Rodriguez is a writer and teacher based in New Orleans with an MFA from Florida State University. He has previously been published in the New Orleans Review, The Southeast Review, The Sandy River Review, Hawai'i Review, and Viewfinder, among other places.