after Roberto Matta
Trenton Pollard
I left the bed of another,
did not make it back to yours.
Jettisoned in flight from the tip
of the dragonfly’s wing
I drowned in flame-ripples.
Searched for you in black boxes
& floating pearls.
You did not forgive me.
My regret is that you did not know sooner:
I did not come with a clean slate:
I do not want to be my father.
I do not want to not be my father.
I want to recklessly chase desire
and be overly kind to strangers.
What I thought was a complete shape
revealed itself as a broken line—
were you there
in its brief neon brilliance?
I touched you to know where I was
but the world was mirage:
washes of pink & gold seen up close,
not from afar. In my earliest chamber
six-year-old me lies in grass.
My little hands pull an older boy closer:
these tendrils explode
as if from angels’ lungs.
Trenton Pollard has work forthcoming in Denver Quarterly, Lambda Literary, The Journal, and elsewhere. Originally from Michigan, he has worked as a welder, massage therapist, political organizer, and poetry teacher. He lives in New York City, with occasional furloughs in Austin, Texas. He is currently the nonfiction editor of Columbia Journal Online.
