Midlife Action Figure by Chris Banks

Author:Chris Banks
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: ECW Press
Published: 2019-09-19T00:00:00+00:00

Jade Pendant

I have a slow leak. Think of a bike tire

made of being, slowly deflating itself.

I walk through my house, and I start

dropping things: Neptune’s 900 mile

an hour winds, Caravaggio’s Medusa,

the fact 100 lightning bolts hit the Earth

every second. The names of Eastern

deities, a graffiti mural on the side

of a boxcar, Cesare Pavese’s interior

monologues, a piece of rose quartz

I found as big as my fist. Truths

and half-truths. I try to pick them up.

All the nights I got drunk and didn’t

remember what happened. That time

a homeless woman with a torn coat

called me a stinking sexual criminal

as I crossed a street. Maybe my brain

needs to declutter, so forgets the names

of movies I cried through. And movies

I wanted to see. With every inhalation,

a sad refrain whispers, Let me out. I feel

things spilling out of me like an art gallery

modelled after an insect’s compound eye

I never built. Hymns I sang in church,

which tasted like vinegar. The seven ages

of man. A jade pendant bought at the foot

of the Great Wall. Names of boys I made

run away from school. A comic collection.

If you insist on staying, grab a basket. Look

carefully. Help yourself to anything of use.

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