Issue 3: Terry Brix

Guilty of You Being More Than I Can Handle

You’re an octopus, eight arms & a myriad of lovely suction cups,

hang adeptly from any ceilings, infinitely mobile,

gymnast agile, lotus position, Kama Sutra, even rollerblading,

You squeeze your body into bottles, crannies & odd hollows

when trouble or moods attack, hide in the clouds of your own ink.

I am clam sometimes less mobile yet, like an oyster.

So firm in my stubbornness, rocks seem like Jello. 

Content to pump, pump seawater, tide pools, filter out sand,

strain out micro algae, unicellular crumbs. Anchored.

Visible, can’t hide. Big sign says, “shuck me.”

Guilty.

You are bird. Feathers, colored plumage, osprey high flight,

plummet talon drop, long-necked blue heron in low-river swoop,

mergansers with against the current motorboat whir.

Words on paper, film clips, books oozing from pores.

You nest, let me come & nestle play goddess watcher.

I am an ostrich. No, sometimes not even that, just an emu,

couldn’t conceive of flight not even flap stumps to imagine.

Adept at high speed running though, swallowing bright

objects––Coke bottles, golf balls, watches, fifths, pride.

Guilty.

You do projects logically: idea first, think, check-off

with friends, solicit resources complete with facts.

Then step by step pause for flowers, food, sunsets.

Idea microwaves & you popcorn explode, blossom,

exude enthusiasm, joy sticks out of you like a porcupine.

Compelled to share––a prickle of quills tickling,

inoculating me from boredom, sameness,

popping hard-line jaw frowns with endless smiles.

I do everything illogically: splats, huge polka-dot bursts,

like Chinese fireworks except rockets glare inside.

I pull the pin & then leap on the exploding grenade.

Pieces fly, phones ring, emails hail––feel pregnant. 

Then I give birth to in-animates like rocks,

many small, some massive like juggling

pyramids & molehills, tombstones & wedding rings.

After going from A to Z, years spent back-filling.

Long-term secret energy comes from Montana.

Mountains grinding inside me, sifting gangue from gold.

Guilty.

--Terry Brix

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