This Side of Paradise
Rent from DeepDyve- This Side of Paradise
I fear memory loss, like anyone; I fear sub-consciousness skipping out mid-
sentence. In conversation, I drift out toward the oak tree that appeared in a poem
I wrote the previous week. It is there, right in front of me, when I thought I had
only imagined it. A crow, open- beaked, dry-tongued, shines, oil-slicked and hungry.
Will this memory recall itself later while I try writing about my grandfather
awaiting chicken-fried steak prepped for Father’s Day dinner in the Alzheimer’s facility?
Maybe. Head tilt up in recognition, then, recognition gone.
I want to hold my grandfather’s face in my hands, speak to him with words that cut-
out, blink-out; speak in the language of for- getfulness. I fear cupping his cheek to [End Page 141]
feel the shave escaped from morning rites; I fear my own rituals gone one day. My
wife holding my face above the bathtub water, eyes black as every part crow. [End Page 142]
Ronald Dzerigian resides in a small farming community just outside Fresno, California, with his wife and two daughters. He received the C. G. Hanzlicek Fellowship while working on his mfa at California State University, Fresno, and has been a two-time recipient of the Academy of American Poets’s Ernesto Trejo Memorial Prize. His poems have been featured in the Santa Ana River Review, Watershed Review, and poets.org.
