March 13, 2013

Alan Soldofsky

RECOVERY AT LAKE TAHOE

The rocky beach shines in mid-August
late afternoon sun between shadows
of Ponderosa pines. Ripples stripe the water
near shore. Across the lake blue deepens
into troughs of indigo. Far out, I imagine,
the wind swells. But here it is benign,
the leaves of manzanita, at the
periphery already beginning to yellow,
barely move. A brownish blackbird,
probably female, chirrups beneath a thicket
of deerbrush, while a Chris-Craft throttles
back its engines approaching the pier
reggae blaring. The young man driving
and his passenger shed their sky blue t-shirts
as they pass, letting another kid jump on
before roaring out again, spraying up
a frothy wake. I try to stay in the present,
disengaged from what seems to move too fast.
Around me the world strives to maintain
a good mood. Two girls in red swim suits,
approaching adolescence, half-immersed, agitate
in the mottled water. Everything seems
to be calling out, too soon, too soon.
A blackbird flashes its yellow eyes
as it plunges its wing feathers into the
glassy curl at the shoreline’s edge.
Euphagus cyanocephalus.
The end of summer presses down
through the alders with an urgent sweetness.
We do what we can to deny what Keats
with some reluctance was forced to accept—
the exhaustion of the inexhaustible. So I
must learn to look more closely, to count
the number of pine needles in a cluster,
to know things by their proper names. To smell
wood smoke hovering over a metal picnic table
set with a checkered cloth for a family.
Five little girls in bright towels and hoodies
scuffing the rocks. While a blackbird fluffs
its feathers on a lakefront post beside
an empty table, standing on one foot.

from Rattle #37, Summer 2012

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April 29, 2010

Alan Soldofsky

TURN OF THE CENTURY PORTRAIT

After he was laid off, he stood in the heat,
listening to the arguments of afternoon.
Around him, cars nosed into their stalls.
He noticed a blister between his thumb

and forefinger, a broken whitish flap
of skin, no one to complain to but the wind.
So he spoke to no one in his gnarled accent,
the car radio abrading his brow

and sat hunched, hands on the wheel
of the ‘81 Cutlass, speedometer stuck at 60,
before turning the key, hearing,
the cylinders fire their fat familiar bursts,

that brilliant hollow-throated thrum,
rattling down his arms’ ulnar nerves.
A wrecked alphabet affixed to the driver’s side
corner of the windshield, decals peeling off

sun-seared glass, a smell like bacon left out
all day in the pan, an incipient rancidness,
a metallic tang of blood pooled
behind his tongue, eyes suddenly stung

by salt dripping off his forehead. The surge
bringing down its full weight upon him,
knowing what a piece of shit all this is,
and what the hell is he going to do about it.

from Rattle #22, Winter 2004

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March 14, 2010

Alan Soldofsky

EARLY NIGHT

In early December
           singing under the hedge
of verbena beside the porch.

What lies the sun tells
          of a few leaves stripped of their color,
parenthesis of rust on the hinges of the car door.

High wisps of clouds
          lit up by something
that has fallen.

The edge of a storm front
          faintly coming, a change in the smell
of the air, a quiver in the wind.

The incipient darkness, smooth as licorice.
          The only light in the house
the one in the closet that’s been left on.

The house quiet except for
          the gnawing in the attic.
The sound of a sound

that can barely hold the weight
          of being heard, a remnant
that ripples down the hallway

into the room where
          you slept. Your books still
dozing on the shelves waiting for you

to open them, or whatever
          it is you will do
when you get back to what you left.

from Rattle #31, Summer 2009

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