As a Small Child I Returned to Indiania

Painting by Lynn Dunbar



AS A SMALL CHILD I RETURNED TO INDIANA


Alan Britt, September 2009

The sun’s fingers entered Indiana hay,
warming it near the temperature
of flat ochre sand grains
stuck to the skinny white ankles
of Palm Beach tourists.

The back of my head,
neck,
shoulders
nestled in the hay’s warm fibers,
those hollow tubes
of sunlight.

The boy from Florida witnessed
a fault line, that day,
branching the entire blue
and white stucco sky.

At the very center of this fault line,
in its jungle of dualities
and howling monkeys,
was a floating placenta,
a world,
a universe of sorts,
but a placenta all the same.

My new universe fed
upon its bloody good fortune.

(A placenta is nothing to waste.)

The boy from Florida
fell fast asleep in the warm Indiana hay.

Posted over on Full of Crow