A Portrait
by Samuel Brammell
I.
My name is Sam and I’m an addict.
When I was a kid I saw a wren hatch—
picture the oblong white planet
rupture.
Imagine the small fleshy body, the eyes blinded by this viscous film.
I’ve been trying to undo the apple,
and see America, the way the wren did.
II.
My name is Sam and I’m an addict.
I have heard about people who drink themselves blind.
Picture your earth, vanishing—no—blurring
into black nebula. Everything is touch,
Even the bottle in your hand changes. Just a glacier made of glass,
given shape by your holding and the cool. Everything is sent,
astringent ozones comprehended through this breathing
and at first you're terrified, I mean, of course you are…
but after a while it makes sense.
You move your lips in the dark, you know its music.
You are held by your lover and she is formless.
She is the feel of a finger on your face, taken all at once.
She is warm air on your neck, wet stick of lips.
She is crying, because she doesn’t know how to care for you,
but you don’t see it, you only hear her breath break.
III.
My name is Sam and I’m an addict. White sky today—white air.
Colors can be entered. When God kisses me I protest:
“Too much tongue!”
America is a room plated with blue sonic lumens. I’m crying.
It’s not because of the war, or the watching. I accept,
that seeing is symptom of my being here. I sit
patiently awaiting this birth. I do not envy the wren
only its nation of touch and motherhood.
IV.
My name is Sam.
Today, I am an addict in recovery
which means my body is a promontory,
or a lighthouse, or an act of disobedience.
I am sober, which means the minutes
bellow recollection
above the boat of my stormy shoulders.
I am healing which means I am sixty-three, or thirteen, or thirty millennia
of dying animals, passing an inherited malady to their children.