Joel Chace

Such a place, for

reappearance, this dumb garage:

serious oil stain smack

in the middle of

its concrete floor; left,

front quadrant sunken, tilted. 

What kind of place. 

But that’s where this

soul rematerializes in front

of his friend’s eyes. 

So, not as much

soul as body, restored. 

Long silence.  Until the

friend says, “What’s it

like?  Where are you?”  

I’m here.  I mean,

where are you, now,

most of the time,

and what’s it like? 

I don’t know, unless

I’m there.  But why

are you here?  Just

for a moment, I

was missing just you. 

The friend reaches out

his hand.  Better not

touch me.  Long silence. 

I need to go. 

        And he does.

She’d been told such

veils would emerge and

part.  Not a dream,

quite.  A curtain appears,

then opens.  Behind it  -- 

her parents in their

old living room.  They

never speak, but only

pad around the carpeting

or occupy a sofa,

various chairs.  They often

motion for her to

enter the scene.  When

she does, she surrenders

her own power of

speech, willingly.  Enough, being

there, adjusting her movements

to theirs, resting and

gazing.  And with their

eyes, they ask her

to stay.  With her

eyes, she’s ready to

assent.  But something always

brings her out:  this

time, the clanging of

a garbage can on

      her street. 

Emergencies  --  thicketed, secret, deep. 

Emergencies of thorns, dust,

dusk. Clouds thicken twilight.

On those distant hills,

lights begin flickering and

rising in a line.

Following emergencies  --  announcements, blood

on this ground.  If

there’s hope, it’s in

    the mountains.

Since they’ll never keep

up otherwise, they shovel

in darkness and stand

in white stuff, as

they call it, already

to their knees.  Their

driveway’s enormous, so more

and more white breath

rises into whiteness beneath

blackness.  They could turn

on the outside pole

lights, but they don’t. 

Shovelfuls of snow fall

into snow on grass. 

They could talk, but

they don’t.  Thighs, backs,

shoulders  --  their rhythms become

word-rhythms inside them, white

words that swirl and

spiral up into whiteness

below blackness in their

             minds. 

Once more, flooding takes

this town.  Power out. 

Streets impassable to all

except rushing fire trucks  -- 

two stores in flames. 

Outside the village, higher

ground’s almost always protection. 

But now, the river

advances toward their home. 

Out back on the

patio, in darkness, Mom

and Dad smoke cigarettes;

look at their feet. 

In an upstairs bedroom,

the three children gaze

out a window  --  there’s

that black sheen.  It’s 

right to where we

always can’t go farther.

So maybe now it’s

not allowed to come

closer.  Yeah, but maybe

just a little more? 

They’re so thrilled that

they themselves are liquid,

shimmering  --  a kind of

liquid that can rise

up and float over

         itself.

Forgetting  --  moving away from

one’s world.  Not always

into emptiness.  Might only

be a change of

mise-en-scène.  Grandchildren, mistaken for

children.  Yancy’s Bodyworks becomes

Nancy’s Bookstore.  Candlewyck Road

transforms into Cuttlefish Lane. 

House numbers may as

well have been spat

out from rapid fire

lottery machines.  At the

end, just one single

certainty:  there will be

a bedraggled coat covering

that child who stands,

             waiting.

She marches, looking straight

down at her feet,

making sure they stay

right on Main Street’s

center line.  Early, quiet,

Good Friday morning.  She

wears her faded, pink

onesie pajamas.  To her

left, at a second

story window, an old

woman frantically gestures toward

that baby.  Across the

way, the guys in

Lannie’s Barber Shop debate

this question, What’s Good

about Good Friday?  After

a while, the parents

burst out of their

house, dad running around

the corner, mom racing

down Main.  She wrenches

open Lannie’s shop door,

shouts, Have any of

you seen a two-year-old?

Seen her, ma’am?  We

pulled her out the

street fifteen minutes ago! 

She’s at the police

station.  When she sees

mom, she says, Look! 

I color picture of

man!  Slashes of green,

blue, red crayons all

through the face and

     body of Christ.

Joel Chace ( Var(2x): Joel Chace, toe) has published work in print and electronic magazines such as Lana Turner, Survision, Eratio, Otoliths, Word For/Word, Golden Handcuffs Review, New American Writing, and The Brooklyn Rail.  His full-length collections include matter no matter, from Paper Kite Press, Humors, from Paloma Press, Threnodies, from Moria Books, fata morgana, from Unlikely Books, and Maths, from Chax Press. Underrated Provinces is recently out from Mad Hat Press. Bone Chapel is forthcoming from Chax. For more than forty years, Chace was a working jazz pianist. He is an NEH Fellow.