"Regarding Facts" by Walter Hill
Photo Credit: Ray Hennessy, obtained and licensed through Unsplash
Regarding Facts
When cooking with cast iron pottery I flip and mince history in my kitchen.
In the deep heat some things age too sweet to the tongue, and I don’t drink enough
water to balance my diet of sitting & not sleeping. But that skillet rests
princely & dimly lit all night, waiting to burn a new flavor past my lips.
I once walked with a coyote on a lamplit road orange in silence,
not fit for eating or conversating it left me alone. I can sleep
just fine with the crickets, but hearing your own heartbeat
struggle double barreled through a cold nose is mighty difficult.
The longest days are the ones that burst at the mooring in freedom
& lurking responsibility, humming just on the other end of a phone line.
I clock in between thirty minutes to an hour at a time, and let the gaps
collect interest on whatever leisure I abandoned in college.
Watching the dog trainer work impressed the importance of a firm grip
on things you cannot ultimately control, façades are meant for pedestrians
and the city block, and a healthy resale value.
today I realized I will cry when the mutt (we think) dies.
If there is a lie upon these lips, I cannot find it until it is loose & captured
& brought just before my face, even then I cannot regard the false offering.
We all desire story and their retelling because we live to
spin our fables until our spell is up, which is to say— autobiography cannot be fair.
My best friend in Maryland goes by Em now, and they have always been
such so our laughter paves across the miles. I try not to ask about the job
search, it’s hard to laugh about searching while digging in its maw
so I ask about their mother & their elder dog.
The people of Austin and its public city squares fret only over big ideas.
In some muddle of young, fit, and wooed by funding, they descend— the less young
and less fit are lifted to other heavens, unseen except in cases where
the tinted window droops low enough for a donation to the citizens of exit 247.
I tell myself this is home, the barbecue is good, and my soft hands craft
vigorous things meant to amuse (and occasionally enrapture) diligent souls
in their journey out-of-here. This only retreats deep in the night
when all the coyote does is stare from the street.
Walter Hill is a software developer by day and always a student of the world. His most recent work has been published in Oroboros Vol. 6 and APIARY Magazine, and he resides in Austin, TX where he finds poetry in the art of traveling distances long and short.