Anna Alma Allison

"Depression is a cultural tradition.
Emotional distance is a family trait."
- a friend. 



Here are the blinks
composed of darkness
and stifled light

which are illustrative
of you and me:

the shadows of our hands entwined
against the light of a yellow wall
at four in the morning
forming the shapes of benign animals
and monsters

interpreting the swell and pulse
of a red candle

incinerating the flotsam of a past
late at night, at the cemetary
fueled by lamp oil and sage

walking home from your apartment
with all of yesterday's clothes
and a can of Coke in my hand
and smiling

the pink rashness of my nakedness

your glowing looming nakedness

an instant free of sadness
and sadness, its lightning quick and imminent
return to your heavy head and bones

you are in the thick wool socks which i gave you for your birthday,
along with stormproof matches and a match-tin

as if to outfit you for a war
without knowing it was already raging
and you were losing 

chess games and a needle sewing sumi ink
into my arm, the flesh of my tender bare,

rubbing noses,

several decades of kisses,

ruined daydreams,

your slack body on my bed,
your face buried in the mattress,
you cannot move, i cannot make you better.

the nightmare of alma.
the hour of the wolf.

still i wear your soft grey sweater
every day
until i move away

and bring only the broken parts with me,
because all the parts are broken.

what was happy within me
was shattered by you.

And what was young grew old.
As if overnight.