Photo of Jed Myers by Alina RiosThe Transitive Property of Despair
Those deft hands at furnace and anvil.
I got a feel for it in metal shop. But
it’s grown industrial—stamped-out molds.
Still the bearer must steady the barrel.
I remember. I won a stuffed llama
for a scrawny kid on Santa Monica Pier.
I exhaled down the line of my sight
and into that shining yellow balloon.
He wasn’t mine but I wanted him
to hold some soft ally at night.
The little wanderer must’ve stood in
for who wasn’t there. I didn’t think of it
then—didn’t ponder what wishes
or dreads I’d sped through the translucent
latex skin of an arcade’s bulb-lit
cartoon sun. At the end of a long breath
not much more than a click, hardly
a recoil, and pop, I’d punctured
one human loneliness. Was it the boy’s,
or my own? Or had I just daydreamed
my nail-biting son’s back home? What
do I assign to a young news-shadow
in a slowly advancing troop, pinned
as I picture him now to a riddled wall,
hope hammering in his chest for a next
blind, perch from which to break through
by a few well-placed shots—and what’s
behind his target’s smoke-hazed face?
No god we’ve forged yet says that part.
