Whatever This Is

Whatever This Is
by Ellen Doré Watson

I'll scale the steps and cross the smooshed-crab-apple
infested grass, but I refuse to clamber down the bank
unless the river is known for its stones. Useless
distinctions like this I have lately clung to-- or

shall I say lately designed? Indecision is legion here
in the (aging) meat of my years. I've established
that the chaise is not curtseying to the birdseed bin
any more than the rags are cozying up to the pile

of windows, which it turns out are feeling neither
displaced nor blue. But I swear that slug stood up
and made a shadow, which, while miraculous, possibly
even purposeful, is not sufficient to the human evening

any more than sweeping before sleep the dropped needles
from the walk. Just look what's happening to my house--
its skin set right and bright--as I turn to lumber.
Memories almost gone as the tiny clay houses that once

nestled the rock wall, which is to say not gone. Flickering.
Gravity! Get the hell away from me sings a twenty-something,
sings (I pretend) the phlox I didn't deadhand, the buoyant
ground cover, the mess of leaves toast-dry, unruly.

Opening into risk is for yesterday and tomorrow--
the other side of whatever this is, this chain (of my own
making?), which is at least not the splintered ladder
left sprawled and numbing in the wettish grass.

~*~*~*~

Whatever This Is
By Ali Broadstone

I keep having this reoccurring dream where I'm surrounded by
doors in a desert, the sun beating down on me
as I stare at the indigo frame of a particular
gateway. It's difficult to remember who I am, why I

came here in the first place. Wind is gelid and
pierces through my stomach like a lance, and maybe it's now
I realize I've been playing too much Persona 3 today.
This world is of my subconscious, of my restless soul

the very piece of my heart I keep breaking apart
into fragmented memories and personae on the floor where each
one grins, each one keeps whispering contrasting promises to me.
It's this game I can't leave, this truth of life

that keeps haunting my gray matter to the point where
I can't stop seeing tarot cards in everyone's faces, their
faces cracking and shattering and all it will take
is someone to scream out, to throw their fist at

that envisioning visage of theirs. Oh, how human nature makes
me sick! Each night in my bed, I have to
play a contestant of some horrid game show, while their
mask is the host, and the only way to win

big cash and prizes is to read minds, a feat
even I can't achieve, as much as I dream at
night about it. Each morning if I wake up and
blink until my eyes water, maybe I'll catch the moment

when the personae falls. Whatever this is, it's an unwelcome
gloom hovering over my body, like the Reaper and his
twin pistols, ready with a loaded gun to my face one
second after ten minutes fly in the endless tower. I

must have decided that people will be the unwavering
death of me.