Everything must be chewed and digested
You remember
many times
In the back seat of a car
Holding your whole world
In a paper bag
In your lap
No idea where
You are going
Just knowing
You have to get away
You begin to fold
And refold
Creating layers of protection
Nothing but skin and innocence
The day comes
When you look at your parent
With the grave realization that
They are lost and
You do not have a net
You become more pragmatic
Than devout
Rubbing your own hope
Into your face
With the dry heels of your small hands
You explore
This new country
In which you now live
There is no vacation
From the irrational vigilance
That has no object
And grants no power
You trade away intimacy
For control
Finding warmth in the friction of relationships
Built past the childhood taken
You navigate
The jagged rocks
A world that would benefit
From hands that would do better to be idle
And it comes
A faint chant
Rising in volume
A sound devoid of pity
Finding residual illumination
From the refuse you are granted
Finding what no one wants
And creating a delicacy
Rick Christiansen has been a stand-up comic, actor, director, and corporate executive. He is published in Oddball Magazine, Muddy River Poetry Review, The Raven’s Perch, Stone Poetry Journal, The Rye Whiskey Review, WINK Magazine and several poetry anthologies. Rick lives in Missouri near his eight grandchildren and with his basset hound, Annie.
