from One Year in a Paper Cinema

 

by Travis Cebula

 

 

 

 

December 6.

 

 

kiss a fire up

close to her

and mend

all

she missed.

pronounce

her secrets,

her name,

 

Alice, like a holy proposal.

Alice, and give her

a blade of green taken

from where she lived,

where she said

I live. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

December 8.

 

 

no learning,

just the history

of the crowd.

the man steps first

in the third man’s

footsteps, then into days

and a robot-faced elegy

higher than a requiem

for a radio king.

 

 

 

 

 

 

December 9.

 

 

doubt is forbidden,

fast love returns.

the boyfriend

and his twenties

drive, roaring,

through Oklahoma by night.

it is a world

for kids, a world before

farms bleed

secondhand vows.

 

 

 

 

 

 

December 10.

 

 

the tide allowed no crimson

dawn, just a red line

identity to recall

the coming of day.

 

before it happened

the lagoon was hard

silver with expelled angels,

while the fashion of the time

was black.

 

 

 

 

 

 

December 11.

 

 

from the vantage

point of strangers,

Fargo proposes

a Christmas dream.

but apart from white

steel, it is

an alien place

unaccompanied

by mountains.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Travis Cebula currently resides, writes, teaches and edits in Colorado.  He holds an MFA in Writing and Poetics from Naropa University.  His poems, photographs, essays and stories have appeared internationally in various print and online journals.  Monkey Puzzle Press released his first solo collection of poetry and photography, Some Exits, in 2009.  A new collection of poetry, Under the Sky They Lit Cities, is currently available from BlazeVOX Books.