03 “WHO CAN KNOW THE HEART OF YOUTH”
“WHO CAN KNOW THE HEART OF YOUTH?”
Commissioned by Polina Piddubna, Inc (2020)
FULL TEXT
There are things I must wait to know, have always known, must learn each day over, before I leave my bed. I know how to make my bed and exactly what it means when on dark mornings I do not. I know hours are fat in August and in trouble. I know there is a kind of cold so cold it burns. Every animal makes its certain sound, every animal is hungry, but will offer you one chance at communion if you know how to listen, if you know what to say. What will you say? At gatherings I learn every wide face for someone my own age, and do not stop till I am found, seen as old enough or older by another kid, or shown kindness. What will I wear that will carry me when I feel to float, when there is no shade to stand in? When there is no one my age to laugh to. What can I bring? I want to offer something to these days so I too can call them ours. I’m not dressed for this. I don’t want to be here, I want to be everywhere and now. I want to go under everything and look, through the thrilling dark green, at the oncoming as in a quiet car with you, ever exiting a tunnel. There is fruit turning dark in the sun, tomorrow sweet, tomorrow fleecing grey and soft with rot. Fill the bottom of your shirt with as much as you can. This is all you can do. Sing with me, memorize the words as we sing, remembering the syrup sting of the garden hose mouth—know it will stay with you when you have no water to drink, no sun to warm the hose. There is water in the grass. There is air in the water which turns it cloudy; it is not dirty, it is filled with air. I’ve long sensed that when I die it will be in the purple woods, or in the streets of cropish towns we’ve only passed through which are long and brown in all directions and will speak without tongues or teeth or lips, if you know how to listen. What do they say? Death will not much change the way of things for me and all my friends made by tears and jokes and reverence as we swam the pond at gloaming. I want to understand you, I study your obscure language. Will you study mine? Will youhelp me shape my stupid words, my prayers for those who wish to harm us? There are things I must wait to know, have always known, must learn each day over. I am not dirty, I am filled with bright and air, and cloudy by the torrent of my perfect joy.