Fear
by Dara Wier
Dara Wier
In fall when we went the roads
for the pure reason of pretending
we were still and the world fell
away all around us, the dry fall
kept my tongue circling my lips.
Think how many paths
circles cross. What range
the tongue bringing moisture
to chapped skin laps.
I watched my grandfather rub
petroleum jelly on his hearing aid
ear. Each of his possessions,
package of black tobacco,
jar of mentholatum,
and, collapsed around a gold coin
he never let me touch,
a leather pouch soft
as damp moss, greygreen,
a lesson. He leaned
and touched his hearing aid
battery to my mouth
to burn my lips, a silver spot
of circular burn that comes back,
do you regret knowing .
he took your hands around his testicles
when it is easy to believe
those nights taught you
how one thing becomes another
His back had been a thing burnt
black when he was brought home
from the clinic to recover
from anthrax. I would not touch
a thing he touched. I watched
the black crescents his fingernails
drew as he drew melon seeds
from cotton sacks or wrapped raffia
around the wounds his knife drew
for citrus grafts.
When he squeezed ichthyol salve
on my instep to draw the thick thorn
back, it healed.
The cusp of the deer’s hoof
is static in our headlights.
There, a blow we’ve taken,
movement in shadow near the road;
we’ve shied, recovered,
and watch for other dangers.
There is the rabbit
whose carelessness could kill us
but she freezes in our headlights
for the next car coming or the random
truck whose driver has no thought
for her or us. Think how many
times it’s crossed your mind,
will they kill us, will the deer
rushing across the road for water
batter his neck on the windshield,
will your swerve to miss another skunk
land us in a ditch. What’s out there
eager to satisfy need or desire
does not care, knows nothing
about the paths we cross.
My tongue without thinking
drives back another wad of tobacco
to soothe a black jacket’s sting.
Think of the traffic a tongue congests,
how the heart crosses and compares
what might not have been
drawn together. Under a perfectly beautiful
moon and on its opening evening
the new highway kills eleven dogs
in its surprising traffic.
As I was reading this poem I realized that there was one BIG stanza and not really any rhyme scheme. She begins to talk about all different sorts of ideas and thoughts and feelings and really random subjects. I also realize that she also puts relevent things together but its mostly irrelevent things. She talks about feelings and thoughts a lot and everytime I read it, it seems to give me another thing to think about and its always lead up to deep thoughts.
I feel like she does these things purposly because what author doesnt want their reader to do a lot of deep thinking?? I dont think there is a rhyme scheme because in this type of poem it would ruin the thought and feeling of wanting to read it over and over again. Some poems sound good over and aover again when they have rhyming, but some poems are written without it for a reason. I have no idea why she put all of those random subjects in there but I'm thinking maybe because if we dont understand one line, maybe reading the next line and looking at it differently will help us get the full view and picture of the poem.
I think the author wanted us to walk away thinking about all the different ideas that she smushed into one poem! I feel like this wasnt done intentionally, but it happened and I was amazed with the final product of her poem because it was AMAZING! I loved this poem so much and she really inspired me to write an amazing poem like this! <3
