July 26-August 1, 2004: Lea C. Deschenes and P. Nidzgorski

Lea C Deschenes and P Nidzgorski

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Bio (auto)

Lea C Deschenes once found a five-leaf clover during a solar eclipse A graphic/web designer in Worcester, MA by day, she is the author eight self-published chapbooks, most recently “Life Is a Bridge On Fire” and is shopping her first full-length manuscript, “The Dream Corridor ” while writing her second, “You ” Her work has appeared in Spillway, Blue Satellite, 2×4, Incidental Buildings & Accidental Beauty and So Luminous the Wildflowers.

The following work is Copyright © 2004, and owned by Lea C Deschenes and may not be distributed or reprinted in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author.

Wedding Cards When they hand you the ring, you understand it is the key to your card house Between you, you have created your mutual cathedral: sacred arches based on leaning, each placed beam three times recalculated from the mechanics of collapse You’ve agreed to cheat, using as much glue along the seams as you can, as much cellophane and tape as you can without destroying the lines of architecture You’ve built baffles out of plexiglass to stop the wind, but you live among isosceles, the gorgeous product of your communal labors in full knowledge it is fragile: One hurricane, one strip poker night, one slipped wrist turned while adjusting the apex of the nave, one wrong word at a resonant frequency, could topple it all Some believe they shelter under brick and stone to the point of being crushed by it Some refuse uncertainty, prefer the shudder of the cold against their skin We build this unlikely thing between us for the same reasons we make art that serves no purpose, will be forgotten in a thousand years, or ten – for the satisfaction of the work, the beauty of the product, the solid feel of what you bless together with your own four hands – We come home at night knowing that even if the high odds rip every piece of this from us, the attempt at forever was made in good faith For whatever time it stands, the pieces used for numberless games become the outlines of our sanctuary, this place where no one bluffs, holding nothing to our chest or up our sleeves, our hands out flat across the morning table, and no one needs to win. Staring At the Sea You were born inland on an average day, unnotable to anyone but you and those close at hand Your life rolled out to follow-strings of small events marking you where their makers cannot see Here you are, halfway through, more or less You never imagined you’d make it this far You always knew your wick was burning at both ends You write about fire all the time because you’re standing in it It’s turned out longer than you thought, thanks to a marrow-meshed stubbornness keeping the string of you soaking in oil before it consumes itself, even when the wax is long gone, your soul a bare filament floating in a lamp on the table This is the only way you know, to be a mermaid forsaken by the water, the dry land like coals underfoot, the barest sun a bonfire on your skin Your mother tongue will never feel native when you speak it to the insubstantial air You are almost used to walking about on dry land having something to lose, to being seen for whatever it is you are despite all your best deceptions, speaking fire while staring at the sea When you tell the truth, mostly no one believes you because the truth is complex and contradictory, an oil fire on the ocean: dangerous, subjectively skewed You only divulge what portions seem today to be relevant The ignition of the slick with a sailor’s cigarette The sand to glass Fish drowning in liquid Precambrian ooze, the revenge of eukaryotes overtaken by lizards The scarlet of the sunset as it pierces through the smoke The irritation in your lungs that lets you know you’re breathing You are almost reconciled with being forever out of your element, whatever undiscovered isotope contains it, at your remaining unanswered questions remaining Your story continues, amoral: You will be foam on the seashore, one day You will have made the room a fraction brighter, and dim You will be content to be home, wherever it is.

1967 Maybe Before the bleacher benches, before the fondness fleeted Before the country clubbed and the seersucker race riots Before the might won’t and the promise made, before the potential fade, trouble took its time and worry waited silently Before the cheap plastic basketball loneliness crushed any hope of hope, there was a time It was going when I glimpsed it Mercy had only a second to spare while Robert Hall painted plaid the valley fair No chance lasted and left me facing life, lying on the stand.