Member Poem

Black Ice, Cracked Dreams
by WC Roberts

When the typhoon slammed into Sri Lanka, he cried out
from under the dome; Kadhir reached -- gloved hand --
as though to bring himself to think of those
he’d left behind
the eyes of Tamil tigers, his lesser being
drawn to their gravity well
and the knife edge of this crater
by earthlight, a face behind his visor
bearded like a saint, a martyr for the cause
thought righteous at the time

*who brings it up?*

Flea-like he jumps to rid himself of the parasitic trauma
of his childhood, trying to acknowledge
the change within, brought out
in concentric rings -- a revolution
this orbit and its ellipse, all going back
and back still further, into country of the dead
only to lose that part of himself
he’d bring to bear
upon arrival--

the moon yanked out from under him
as he lands, the black ice
or a ghost from the machine
his knee twisted, destroyed, hurls lightning up his spine
and takes his breath away
as his body -- a curling stone -- goes
and it goes
and it goes
until it is stopped by a jut of lunar regolith

Through his cracked visor streams air and water vapor
a slow leak and silent as Kadhir, on his side, peers up
at his homeland
the island -- having sided with the earth --
turns away from him as if in shame

dying, he hears their voices, the voices of the Tamil dead
asking why he had not, as they had, moved on;
but in this one thing the living
are not as able as the dead