Lori Lamothe
BAT BOY
after Daniel Kish
The air streams past,
your feet pedaling fast fast faster
as the shapes of cars and houses
appear and dissolve
in the sharp, summer darkness.
You're the only kid on the street
but your mother doesn't stand in the doorway
and call out
into what to her looks like emptiness.
She knows you're not meant for rooms
sweltering with comfort,
can almost see
you pick up speed on the highest hill in town
black wings opening as you fall into flight,
the wide, wild soundwave world
spread out below you.
* * *
SAVANT
This was a time when she couldn't feed or dress herself but what she did do was start drawing on the walls at home.
—John Dabell on Nadia Chomyn
The horses
gallop dance prance
in and out of imagination.
Around the bed, the sketched walls
ride up and down
down and up
on the carousel that circles through difference<
Silence an unexplored fairground:
a sky field
where colors run gladly together.
People and trains wear ordinary
lines, travel to two-dimensional syntax
but the horses weave mystery harmonies
speak merry motion language
that rises and falls
falls and rises
like the sea rocking the sun to sleep.
Lori Lamothe is the author of three poetry books, Trace Elements, Happily and Kirlian Effect,
as well as several chapbooks. Recent work appears in Cider Press Review, Memorious, Jet Fuel Review, DMQ Review,
Gingerbread House and elsewhere. In 2018, she received her fourth Pushcart nomination.
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