When was your last colonoscopy? I’m collecting
questions I’d like never to be asked again, which means
I’m trying another way to construct a heaven. My brain
likes to do this when idle, like twiddling thumbs. Though
now I’ve said it, in my experience rotating thumbs
around each other takes concentration. Maybe an issue
with coordination, maybe I want to increase the speed
until my digits blur into binary stars I hold in my hands
while waiting to purchase slacks. Would you like to join
our rewards program? I’m constructing a heaven
under the crabapple tree at the end of its bloom
I’m remembering while tipped back in this recliner
too small for my height or weight. The fading patches
in the beige suggest how long I’ve adapted myself
to its narrow ways. Petals like beaded curtains
continuously falling. Have you considered layaway?
When my father lugged our first color TV down
the basement stairs, I watched his descent and thought,
This is it. I finally join the human race. I’m constructing
a heaven of pixels like tiny, vibrating dimes, falling stars
I can scoop up and offer in two hands. Are you
even human? the kid in the seat to my left asked
all through third grade. Here was a transformation box
not big enough to crawl inside, but I could swim
in its lapping, benevolent light. Can I have a turn
with the remote yet? No more watching Jazz games
with the radio cranked because the black-and-white’s
sound was out. No more living between parallel universes
at the commercial breaks—suds like petals folding
into a woman’s curtain hair while over ka-chings
a man drawls, Come on down to the auto mall.
Do you really believe in heaven? Do you shift
inexplicably between hero and who’s this
as if mirrored opposable digits rotating
at increasing speed around a life? I miss leaning on
my brother leaning on my father bracing against
the armrest in monochrome light as the game clock
ticked down and Stockton and Malone pick-
and-rolled. Binary stars. Dimes. Pixels like petals.
David Thacker’s first poetry collection, Joystick the Wrecking Ball, is forthcoming from Signature Books. He is the recipient of the Western Literature Association’s Creative Writing Award, and his poems have appeared in Kenyon Review, Orion, Tin House, and elsewhere. He directs the visiting writer seminar at the Ethel Walker School.
Image: Planet Volumes for Unsplash+
