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OUT AND IN

by Rob Rice

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Outside 

 

Sweaters set

In sync with the leaves changing

Highways in New York and Connecticut

Surprising

Their charm

In disrepair

The asphalt feels harder and more brittle

Loud

Like cold ceramic

Something in the families and water

The leaves that stink

Like creek bed and salamander

Fungal threads

Walks with dogs long since dead

It used to be

That you couldn’t make it once around the trail

Even in your imagination

The trouble of nutrient rich childhood

Weighing you down

The cold cheeks of a fat kid

Patchy red and white

The whole face is cheek

Brief exceptions

Expressions

New York and Connecticut

You’re a visitor there

What is it

It’s too deep

Grade

Grain the wood of those saccharine houses

And huge of them

The intricacy of the family systems

Not giving back

Like a forest

In a German fable

Wealth obfuscating everything

Disorganized and teeming

It’s so hard to lace

It falls asleep

into myth

Defeated lazily

into myth

Sinking with a smile like the French woman

It would take your whole life to understand

And then you’d try to explain it

And ruin everything

The natural

Exists right up until you press it

Then the domesticated

The museum

No one looking for proof ever witnesses magic

 

Inside 

 

You stand there

Your sharkskin muted in the afternoon lights off

The apartment so well arranged it’s hard to speak out loud

The wall with one arm and bowing your head

Musing about what it would be like to be her

A woman your wife

Is this the first time you’ve thought like this

You think

And how exciting that could be

You could have an affair

She could have an affair

She’s still so beautiful

You’re so dark now

So late in the afternoon

A good hour since it would have been fully undepressed to turn the lights on

She could have someone over

Someone career army

Glass eyes don’t give

All belt and pleat

And he’d snap

Or he wouldn’t

But she’d know he could

He wouldn’t even have to

It’d be so obvious

You lost that

Or never had it

Your power’s gone

It’s out

Who bought this apartment

Where is she

How did you two meet

Can you remember

She can’t

She’s not even home

Enjoy your wealth

She has him

Or might as well

You could find someone

With all that

But you couldn’t hide the power thing

The lack there