Portrait of Antonia

by Luciano Iacobelli

I swim in the human pool
but my backstroke is a negating one
retracting both the water
and the brain burning sun

I yearn for twilight
Its bonfires and wrecks
Its double jointed stillness
heavy and light

my love of escape
openly adores the distance
        not the far spectacular vista
but the simple horizon formed
by the heart’s hidden strength
embracing  mountain and  hill
                     crushing  them
          into a sea blue  line

          *
I was in my father’s house looking out a window
staring down at the narrow street
unlucky for its lack of children
         only the constrained air
peddled its shattered light –

a salty liquid nostalgia ran down my face
and I thought of the child conceived without parents
born outside of me

where did the darling disappear
I have only its smile now
neatly folded in my memory
      tucked under a meadow
and a lake

          *
and yet I manage to turn them up
and stare at the sky
eyes heavy as anchors
and I see something beating at the closed firmament
             a pounding fist of sight and sound

and the door swings open
down come all the aborted sentiments
and their corresponding words
made whole and perfect
by the fall

— from Juniper Volume 1, Issue 1