self-portrait, failing brakes

I will die on a night      like this:
wet roads & mildew swelling

from my doors        my brakes
don’t withstand the rain anymore       my dad

has been trying to fix       everything for me
since he couldn’t solve my college fund

or the problem of my anger         I haven’t told him
about my car      its failures         he finds me hungry

& tugs me to an Olive Garden         not knowing
I spent my last eight dollars      on a gaudy painting

poorly framed I skid           brake       slide
stay somehow       somehow        in the elbow

of the road                the oil-slick water
pulls rainbowed pollution            sludge slips

into sewers painted          Protect Our River
pleading Only Rain Down the Drain         we are always

asking the impossible         but I am unskilled
in receiving it ……….my living arrival

is a miracle                         ….. and I am not sure
how to thank my God

Thursday afternoon

…..after Brian Eno and Jonathan Jolly

skywires in out of lightland bird
up up        Thursday afternoon slung

out on soccer field ..dripping into
grass itchy on toes      /    your tongue

buzzing           my leg hair growing
in itchy and grass-covered

skin and yellow green blue clouds
skywires cross        vibrating still. / .your

hand still
………………….your hand
………………………………………….your eyes sky

blue staring up up       an empty soccer field
our backs on turning earth        I ask if

you can feel the spinning if the
soaring west clouds prove that we

are moving       that we are moving
blue that we are moving……..east to

Eden       I long to be in Eden trees
blooming        rivers running bubbling

my limbs cradling            lavender
your hand    …..reaching for me—

……………..—your hand reaches for me    /    red

clouds red clouds an empty soccer field ringing
warning skywires whirring pulsing white skywire
black    black skywire white yellow red clouds
orange and green yellow grass
a soccer field       a soccer field sky staring sky eyes

…………staring      /    love me I am afraid…. /     staring

into width

& breadth
& breath
& wind
& color         expanse of

…………..heaven in your hand reaching

peach
………………….peach
………………………………./      maroon and static
…………………………………………lie back       /

lie back             /        bird up up
up birds ..a chain a clover

chain hold back my fingers        grip clover
a breath        clover    your hand open

waiting                    my question
barely past my tongue         do you feel the

spinning are we moving are we moved
does turning earth paralyze ..clouds

running west over soccer field
breath        clover      white buds waxy

in out of fingers legs itchy
to touch          /        your hand

bidding mine to       touch     /   ..hold back
itchy legs orange sky         skywires buzzing

your hand pulsing reaching waiting

………..for me
………………………………./
………………………………………..you answer me

you tell me we spin slowly

…………………………………………….slowly

…………lavender

slow enough to run and
………………………………………….get somewhere

……………………………..white clouds again

lavender again

………………………………peach again

…………..slowly
……………………………………….your hand open

waiting       /        your eyes running the
length of my body …. /      itchy legs I

hold back       your eyes searching       I
lie back and say I’m saying the

world is spinning too fast

pink now
……………….too fast
……………………………pink now
……………………………………………..and Eden is

shaking itself away there is an
east purple sky       the world spins

I lie here yellow        grass
the sky indigo static… spinning

all there is

……………………. there is your hand lifting

there is beauty to

be grasped I lie here all I must do
is reach

…………………/

……………………………..touch

our hands

…………………lavender falling

……..into honeyed

grasses ……the world moving

…………………………slowly

………..slowly

………………………slow enough

to reach

……………..and get somewhere

____

Rebecca Pickard is a writer and researcher based in Lynchburg, Virginia. Her current projects include research on the early anti-slavery efforts of the South River Quakers, as well as a long poem built from linguistic research, religious experience, and the Blue Ridge mountains.