{"id":1732,"date":"2012-07-18T23:39:13","date_gmt":"2012-07-18T23:39:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fullofcrow.com\/poetry\/?page_id=1732"},"modified":"2012-07-18T23:42:40","modified_gmt":"2012-07-18T23:42:40","slug":"ally-malinenko-712","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.fullofcrow.com\/poetry\/archives\/ally-malinenko-712\/","title":{"rendered":"Ally Malinenko, 7\/12"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Compass Reading<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I think I saw him coming<\/p>\n

before his car scrapped up against<\/p>\n

my side,<\/p>\n

snapping the sideview mirror<\/p>\n

off like the way you pluck a stem<\/p>\n

off a grape.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But maybe I didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Maybe I just thought<\/p>\n

I saw him coming,<\/p>\n

bearing down on us in that van,<\/p>\n

on the bridge back to Brooklyn.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Maybe what I really saw,<\/p>\n

was the wrong turn<\/p>\n

the hesitation I had always been<\/p>\n

warned against.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Maybe I saw the scars I\u2019ve yet to get<\/p>\n

not today, obviously<\/p>\n

but tomorrow maybe<\/p>\n

or maybe it was a van full of nightmares<\/p>\n

bracing for the impact.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Maybe I saw you in the drivers seat,<\/p>\n

taking part of my life away.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

All the same, I said I saw him coming<\/p>\n

but I don\u2019t think I did.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think anyone ever sees these things coming.<\/p>\n

I had misread the compass,<\/p>\n

and what was up suddenly became down<\/p>\n

like it did when I flipped that car,<\/p>\n

when I was just a kid,<\/p>\n

and the metal roof, touched the steering wheel<\/p>\n

and we, all four of us,<\/p>\n

should have been headless.<\/p>\n

Dead at 17.<\/p>\n

Christ, I could nearly taste it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

You asked me if I was okay,<\/p>\n

and I was,<\/p>\n

but now, like then,<\/p>\n

I couldn\u2019t stop shaking,<\/p>\n

just a little quiver in the fingers<\/p>\n

but enough to remind me,<\/p>\n

that inside is nothing but tissue,<\/p>\n

blood, vessels<\/p>\n

cells<\/p>\n

pounding down a tunnel,<\/p>\n

bearing their way through me,<\/p>\n

like a strait<\/p>\n

between this world and the world<\/p>\n

of blood on the asphalt.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Orpheus<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I can barely hear the piano<\/p>\n

the tinny plink plink of notes<\/p>\n

wafting out of the radio.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Notes dropping the way<\/p>\n

people drop, plink, plink,<\/p>\n

into the plastic seats on the bus,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

their faces swollen as if slapped,<\/p>\n

by the winds near the estuary,<\/p>\n

their hands brittle, clinging to the<\/p>\n

pole, going where?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Going home?<\/p>\n

Is this what we have all been waiting for?<\/p>\n

Our hands folded, our heads down,<\/p>\n

our lives comprised of packed lunches<\/p>\n

of cheese and mustard sandwiches,<\/p>\n

of bottles that have been<\/p>\n

or will be<\/p>\n

or should be<\/p>\n

opened?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This is the quiet between the death spaces.<\/p>\n

This is the quiet between the birth pangs.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There is music on this bus<\/p>\n

that huffs and chugs it\u2019s<\/p>\n

tired way down 86th<\/sup>\u00a0street<\/p>\n

in the new rain<\/p>\n

that washes the silt and mud<\/p>\n

and beer cans down the city street<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

and I wonder<\/p>\n

what song is it,<\/p>\n

tonight,<\/p>\n

on such a moonless, starless night,<\/p>\n

on a stark unholy, un-kissed night,<\/p>\n

what song is it<\/p>\n

that will save our lives?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

The Something<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In the museum is your favorite painting,<\/p>\n

the\u00a0Three Musicians.\u00a0Right there, when you<\/p>\n

turn the corner. I can see it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The harlequin,<\/p>\n

the pierrot<\/p>\n

and the monk.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

You like the colors, you tell me, the way the<\/p>\n

blues and brown beat against each other.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I should be on my way there, right now,<\/p>\n

to see it<\/p>\n

alone.<\/p>\n

You have already left.<\/p>\n

My bag heavy with great books written by great men.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I have packed my journal, so that I can sit<\/p>\n

in front of that painting, a great painting painted by a great man.<\/p>\n

The reds and browns beating against each other<\/p>\n

attracted and repealed over and over<\/p>\n

so that I can sit and write.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Something.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The museum, was something<\/p>\n

to do today. To fill the hours.<\/p>\n

But on the way I realized that the museum<\/p>\n

was one more thing to do, one more something<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t want to do.<\/p>\n

One more something I didn\u2019t want to see.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So instead I am home, having turned back at the train station.<\/p>\n

The cats curl their tails<\/p>\n

in little question marks when I open the door.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Later I will write and read and possibly<\/p>\n

lay my head on your pillow<\/p>\n

in the bedroom,<\/p>\n

I will wait in the silence for a moment.<\/p>\n

The murmur of the neighbors,<\/p>\n

the car honks at the window,<\/p>\n

the questioning purr of the cat.<\/p>\n

It will be the moment before the something.<\/p>\n

Before I get up and put in the laundry,<\/p>\n

taking,<\/p>\n

great comfort in these little things<\/p>\n

done by us little people.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Ally Malinenko writes short stories and poems and even one novel and occasionally gets things published. Her second book of poems entitled Crashing to Earth is forthcoming from Tainted Coffee Press. She blogs over at\u00a0allymalinenko.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Compass Reading   I think I saw him coming before his car scrapped up against my side, snapping the sideview mirror off like the way you pluck a stem off a grape.   But maybe I didn\u2019t. Maybe I just thought I saw him coming, bearing down on us in that van, on the bridge […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":934,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1732","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nAlly Malinenko, 7\/12 - Full Of Crow: Poetry (Archives)<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.fullofcrow.com\/poetry\/archives\/ally-malinenko-712\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ally Malinenko, 7\/12 - Full Of Crow: Poetry (Archives)\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Compass Reading   I think I saw him coming before his car scrapped up against my side, snapping the sideview mirror off like the way you pluck a stem off a grape.   But maybe I didn\u2019t. 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