Julie Choffel

If Anyone Know

of the light, vanished from the trees, the ache of the bough under song, crumbs of winter, soft horizon, the wellness underground

a reason for this trick of water, stain of joy, rough rotation

that these two or three or four mockingbirds, calling out, quickly tuning, the vibe new but anyway dusty, overheard & borrowed

should not be adored, released from meaning, unburdened but for the burden of survival, itself hot enough already at midday

speak now, unname them to the others, untethered, in the juniper underbrush and greenbriar plenty

or forever hold on, gasping for anchor, what’s-it-all-for, being leveled, hardly seen.

The Lake 

The bizarre smorgasbord of items removed from the lake include: a gerbil in a tiny casket, decapitated birds in a white pillowcase,
a homemade crucifix, a briefcase stuffed with credit cards, a bag of human ashes (turned over to the coroner), an entire dumpster,
love letters, a game of Mahjong, and hundreds of e-scooters. In 2018, it took a team half a day working with a truck and crane to
extract a grand piano from the lake bottom. 
—Ally Markovich, writing about Lake Merritt in the The Oaklandside

I don’t know what to say to you, people. You put your lives into me
like I was a saint. Offered your best, your darndest, your most
beloved. Maybe you needed a flood, and I was the closest thing.
Maybe I was just the thing standing between you and the rest
of your life, like a magnificent failure or losing your religion. It did 
always seem like God should be able to hold all our attitudes
including our attitudes about God. A piggy bank for our feelings.
All around me you drive and walk and bike and drive and accidents 
happen. And you wonder at the outermost kitsch of your being, studded
with playlands and rescued animals, roses and high-rises, trash for eons
and lights among the light. All of these beauties merely tangent 
to your better questions. I asked for nothing but you gave me all
and even the birds, who know only my surface, can see that you have little 
left. A little daylight, a little night. It’s your grief in plain view now
that your matter was never your own.

Back to Issue XII…