- The Agonist
I sat there- watchingin tall earth while a red breast
with worm half in shadow stood idlebeneath a birch in full bloom- and why
trembling I felt my pulse- -riseand clutch at my skinn- touch it my sing
ed neck stung under light passingthrough- its black mandibles upon me
I pulled it from my neck still ragingstill flailing- -at my presence
obsidian and muscular pulled so quicklyand with such alarm it must ve been
torn apart from its mandibles left pulsingin the muscles of my throat on the paper
I threw it- toothless and on firebefore crushing it- -under my thumb [End Page 581]
its body left a residual music -nervesnapping its legs and antennae- -ticking
in a way I could no longer describe asanxious maybe and- -the bird
disturbed flew awayI was left -with the boy s bleeding mouth
I was left with atonal music anda generation with no regard
for low flight- -come screamingacross the skyline- I could see it
bleeding against pluto- -from her windowon the day -now I am here
where the purging is impersonal wherependerecki is left to play on a loop
in every languid parlor and is heavingshe no longer lives here- -and [End Page 582]
the earth beneath me is -disquietedshifting anxiously -when I think of her
space now occupied by a -noncenoisechild of white flight -which vacates me
trembling -and every lie that I amtrying -to explain an absence
to justify the disrepair that comes witha decaying -memory
a sparrow fanning itself with dustwhips up a quick cloud -diffracting light
that carries increasingly diffuseacross memory lane- -sitting in the park
I am left to consider apostasy [End Page 583]
Andrew E. Colarusso earned the BA in comparative literature from New York University and is currently pursuing the MFA from Brown University. This native New Yorker is founding editor of The Broome Street Review.