The Dress

The need for attention proves agonizing the crazier Jenna feels. It assails her mind until no corners are untouched by its wickedness. She sees herself strutting through the center of town, through the business square with its one street bustle, in her full-length seventies gowns, being judged and juried by the community. The dresses are hideous, showing the degree of her mental decline, they speak to her, and she hears their language; listens to the stories about the journey the garments have made from person to person until landing on the racks at Salvation Army, waiting for her to rescue them. The automatic door opens slowly with a creaking of age. The smell of time hits her in the nose. She runs her left hand over the garments. Each gown glows with an aura making her fingers get numb and tingly. Jenna closes her eyes to avoid biasing her choices based on favorite colors or textures. A dress must be felt intrinsically to achieve the status of the midday parade through downtown. No ordinary gown can qualify. Her entire body halts as electricity arcs into her fingertips. The feeling is strong and Jenna hesitantly opens her eyes to reveal a wonder. Beneath her hand is the most glorious dress she has ever seen. It is 100% polyester, floor length, black and white calla lilies pieced together in a visual feast. The sleeves are full to the wrist, and the neckline plunging into a shift bodice that pulls the eye to the floor. Jenna quivers in anticipation of trying the dress on. “It has to fit, it has to fit,” she chants to herself on the way to the dressing room. The curtain to the small changing room slides over easily, the sound of it reminds her of getting in the shower, it smells of mothballs and old ladies, but these attributes have become enchanting. They signify impending discoveries. Jenna disrobes down to her bra, panties and black, worn combat boots studying herself in the mirror, though it never does any good. She cannot see what kind of girl she is, and the girl in the mirror never tells her anything useful. With arms up high, the dress comes down over her head, sliding easily and perfectly into place over her breasts. The fabric releases from her hands and swishes to the dirty carpet below, swallowing her boots. Her hands smooth out the wrinkles, running over hips and breasts and thighs. The dress is immaculate and fits her without question like a second skin. The African charm fastened around her neck as a choker gives the look statement, her clean-shaven skull with swaths of paprika hair, adds just the right amount of color. Jenna studies her image and feels complete. She removes the garment, carefully folds it, checks the price tag several times to be assured it is affixed. Items without price tags cannot be sold until re-priced, and they almost always are more expensive once desired. Her clothes are replaced like old friends, and she sweeps back the curtain of the dressing room with flourish holding her head high like a movie star, an heiress, an artist, a musician, a woman bent in more ways than one. Jenna lays the dress upon the counter as if handling a newborn or a fragile artifact. The check out girl roughly unfolds it, shakes it out, inspects it and looks at her sideways, screwing up her face. She’s got to be crazy to wear a dress like this. “That’ll be $1.99 plus tax.” Aleathia Drehmer 2007 Published by The Clockwise Cat 8/07

Drowning

Mikela watches Jonah blow smoke rings around his pallid face in the half darkness. The wisps trail from his lips along the bridge of his straight, long nose before dissolving in front of his eyes. Light from the television screen reflects in his glasses as he sits motionless. Jonah’s long legs fold up in front of him like stilts as he leans his back into the ratty brown couch. It is stained from late night parties and laziness, the fabric worn in places until the padding is evident. She looks at him as if he were a building whose architecture she might want to scale and measure. The shape of his limbs perfectly angular as they connect to the center of his body, beams jutting from a steel frame, his exterior slick and fragile, as if coated in a fine layer of glass. Images from the television make shapes on his face, the same as on her face as she sits directly behind him silently stroking the fine, dark brown hairs at the base of his neck. He blows a perfect ring of smoke into the silence. Mikela stares through the center at the black and white movie that has been playing for the last hour. She can see Tom Waits’ mouth moving, face contorting, arms flailing about, but she is relegated to imagining the gravel of his voice, as Jonah likes to watch movies without sound. He tells her he would rather study the language of the body in conversation than the language of voice with so many of its words wrapped in double meanings. “The body does not lie the way words can,” he says to her. Mikela tilts her head to the right towards the curtain-less windows; the squares of glass dirty from smoking. She looks at the field to the side of the house; the raspberry brambles build a fortress around the edges in the moonlight. She notices the fish swimming in the tank that is sandwiched between two low-slung sills. The off white paint slowly chipping reminding her of paper birch trees, and it makes her want to get up and start peeling it away. But the filter bubbles into the tiny ecosystem distracting her, and the light catches on the iridescent scales of her tetras. She is captured here for a minute, contemplating her arrival at this very place in time; how after all these years she would find herself alone, but not alone, watching silenced movies in the dark. She can’t touch him without the fear of drowning in his sorrow, without extinguishing her own joyfulness, and she realizes right then that he is something she cannot fix. Smoke dissipates above the crown of his head again hanging there like a soft mist and Mikela suddenly feels like an apparition. He is lost in himself in these moments and she is nothing to him. She could pass through him unnoticed except for the sudden chilling in the air that would make him shiver, but not notice her. And when the feeling of an invisible hand lightly brushing the hairs of his arm alarms him, only then will he remember she was once there. Aleathia Drehmer 2007 Published by Beat the Dust 1/08

"Throwing A Life Preserver"

for Alfaro I fell asleep On the airplane With your words Imbedded in my brain Taking hold Expanding Until the cadence Of your voice Was intertwined I awoke with words Catapulting forward How can such wings Be strong enough To carry the weight At such a slow speed? I awoke to pressure Between my ears Air pressure Word pressure A third pressure To find something On which to write It all down! The plane climbs Invisible stairs In the air The attendant Pierces me As I reach For my bag I take the magazine From the seatback Scribbling words Across the South Georgia Island Thoughts across Russia Mongolia to China And Micronesia Until I have reached The end of the world With your words On my brain Your voice in my ear A faceless, soundless voice That won’t leave Me alone. Aleathia Drehmer 2007 Published by Silenced Press 11/07

"Step Lightly on the Forest Floor"

Pushing up from the loam, from the self-induced darkness temptations oscillate above me in attempts to stunt the growth of walls constructing/deconstructing around my core. Somehow I imagined the absence of light and voices, filled with gentle words, sifted through fences, might diminish me back into reality. But it only covers me in a fine layer of dirt rich in conflict laced emotions, and sometimes I feel left to the obscurity, only noticed in fits of automatic need that satiate curiosity or buffer the pain of loneliness. And you make light about the condition of my keep, left in the dark sustained on shit, and I laugh with you only because it is true. Aleathia Drehmer 2007

"Abacus"

She only holds hands until the second crosswalk and then the warmth of tiny fingers floats away without care; This large hand left grasping at fog already cool from her absence. It starts the morning ritual, inspecting the fringes of sidewalk for slugs, keeping meticulous count on eager fingers, prepared to move beads on the abacus hanging in front of her eyes. They are cataloged by size and thickness until the final count has been reached, until the flower beds draw her in with colors and dew, and she flawlessly moves on to spider webs. Aleathia Drehmer 2007 Published by Agua 2007

"New Ideas that are not New"

The red-haired boy rings around an oak tree filling his curiosity like a pail left out in the rain, each droplet providing a transfer of energy bent on lighting up his face. Little by little it creeps up from his chin pulling muscles into a smile, cheeks livening with the pink of new ideas and eyes pop open in wonder as the most important man in his life tips his head around the trunk. A chase ensues. Aleathia Drehmer 2007

"Olly, Olly Oxen Free"

This forest is thick with haves and have nots, heavy with could be's, drenched in the evenings lingering dreams. I see him around the tree hiding and holding his breath, shushing the sound of his heart beating louder that fists swung in a rage. He finds that place where it quiets and limbs relax into the bark and sounds have silence under their tongues. And I cannot stand to watch it so easily attained, this restraint and knowing of concepts that have always been my crosses to bear, with their heavy hands upon me, no intensions of sharing the burden. So I leave him there backed into his tree, in his sounded silence, his miraculous resolutions of heart, and slip into the dark. Aleathia Drehmer 2007 Published by Erbacce 2/08

"Quiets in the Sound"

I open my door to the fresh of morning, a wisp of fog still hanging loosely around the burning bushes and it is there I find a head of stone, Its sweet face meticulously carved into the gray. I run my fingertips over the features smooth and life like, and I think of your face when I close my eyes, pausing a moment at the lips, sigh my heart into your mouth. I turn its heaviness over in my hands, rough and uncut save a symbol gouged into a smoothing that tells me of paradox in tiny glyphs and marks, sings to me “Twinkle, twinkle like a star does love blaze less from afar?” out of the peaks of rough stone that remind me of the sea, and I add my salt to its body willingly. The creator etches his secrets into the granite knowing it will hold them, knowing the surface is stronger than most men, that words in their simplicity can pluck so tender at the strings of a heart until it quiets in the sound. Aleathia Drehmer 2007

"Meant to be Broken"

Driving down the highway into a rising fog thick from the river, and I feel stuck inside my brain; thinking of the force your will pushes me with, how it punishes me into humility. Moving around the bend faster than the limit, grinding random rules between my teeth, their acrid taste scares me because I cannot get enough, and the sun bursts sideways through the density turning everything white. I feel your hand, cool and smooth, softly wiping away the condensation of my fear. Your skin wet with the heaviness of me, with the residue of my emotional explosions, rabid dog obscenities and lack of control. You touch my chaos to your mouth and it taints the waters between us. Aleathia Drehmer 2007 Published by Debris Magazine 7/08

"Headspace"

I sit and wait in silence today under a canopy of spider webs laden with summer’s furtive capture. The old fat men lazy in their hammocks take in what is left of their lives. The world seems alive today, more than yesterday, with prospects of discovery cajoling me. The bobbing of goldenrod releases pollens sure to induce future miseries, and leads me to believe their musty odor is something to be relished as the garnering of autumn. But more so, it is the wind speaking to the trees, curling its chilled tongue full of secrets and whispers, around the leaves, transforming the color of the world, coaxing them into slumber like a maiden fair. Some part of me yearns for this kiss of permanent sleep that would find me suspended in the fine mist between reality and dreams until the taste of spring thaw drips unto my lips, lingering there like a prince beholden of beauty resting in silence under a canopy of spider webs. Aleathia Drehmer 2007

"Angle of Arms"

She finds moments when their bodies are close together, skins in light sweat sticking with feverish tension as she guides the young girl’s arm through a perfect forehand; Her sex rubbing against the flounce of a tennis skirt; The friction of her breasts pushing into a delicate back during the follow through. These things are all too tempting, as she plies this young thing, this child into a bleeding story speaking of star-crossed and forbidden lovers telling tall tales about the differences between them, their strength more than the world can handle. Though the span of their ages is greater than the sum of the girl’s years she cannot change the desires or the love buried inside her as she lowers her face into sweetness and innocence to taste that which was never hers to begin with. Aleathia Drehmer 2007 Published by False Eye Beetle 2007

"Faces of Old Men"

Cultural smells threaten the air with temptations creating a hostile war zone in my gut as I run my fingers along spiked iron bars confiscated by rust beneath the surface, chipping away at the infrastructure. The tepid water sprayed from the green hose wets my arm, skin reaching and pulling towards petals imprisoned in spaces between rectangles, trapped in two-dimensional skirts of fabric tragically shapeless. The sound of tread from two wheels and four kissing the pavement, dissolves into beats of bass that push shoulders back and cock arms stiff in a show of cool. Leather faces, imparted with yellow smiles, gaps in the mouth letting the world enter of its own accord, letting tongues slip through as if made of ocean salt pushing through ragged coral, only to be wiped clean by the hands of age and sun. I am an illegal alien with a swelling in the core, taken by realities, unfolding inside myself, watching the transformation of the human condition in smiles and eyes. Aleathia Drehmer 2007

"How Deep It Is"

Her head slumps forward in the wheelchair, chin accusing the mouth of drooling too much, and he pushes her steadily looking around at the grayness, at anything but the line of spittle from her lips and is lost in a far off look of sadness that mirrors hers. There is love between them though hidden and morphed over years of illness, memory loss ,and time. The sweetness of it now faded on the tongue, as she no longer knows his name, or her own. It is the scraping of her sneakers echoing off the glass buildings filled with pretty things she won’t remember or maybe did not even see. The black smudges digging grooves into her white tennis shoes with fateful resistance tell the biggest story, of how things push her against her will and how she is left with silent arguments between body parts for company. Aleathia Drehmer 2007

"When It Falls Away"

My body is curious, transparent like air, invisible molecules undergoing fission and fusion in rapid succession as October drills in through the windows with the sounds of my bird on the playground entertaining the German girl from next door with loud spoken stories she will never understand; And autumn is flashing her bosom blushed in jacinth and cinnabar, the foothills alight in the slow burn rising into the blue. Aleathia Drehmer 2007

"Fragile"

Women spend their time whittling away his heart, soft as soap, each tender word slicing curls of lye and fragrance so easily melted with careless, warm tears. It is their American sensibility, inbred ideals of wasting, of unending abundances, of grasses greener in another pasture while the seeds of his heart prepare to germinate with only the thought of a gentle touch, so willingly cultivated by glances ripe with desires promised. But these women do not understand the chemical composition of something as fragile as soap, as love, something so simple and pure with its powers to cleanse all that is tainted, to hold them upward into rebirth, into the sun that rises above the morning fog hanging heavy over their lids. Aleathia Drehmer 2007 Published by Munyori Poetry Journal 10/07

"Beating Her Chest"

I tell my heart to shut up, stop lingering where she doesn’t belong, beating in directions she shouldn’t for the sake of morality and social customs, but she never listens to me, never turns an ear to the voice of reason, never can remember each time she has been cut and stabbed or stolen from the wrinkled edge of my green shirt sleeve. She calls out my name, yelling about personal freedoms and how I never let her spread her love around. How I keep her caged for the properness of it, and she raises her fists to the chains that bind her fast to one lonely soul for all eternity. She begs me to understand that feeling love makes it real despite my glooming cloud of self-made guilt hovering over us both. She starts beating her chest again, hard and fast so I cant ignore her; Reminds me that love never dies or shrivels or stays in one place for very long, but each time I find it lying on my doorstep, on the radio, in the grass, on his face, in her eyes, on a kiss that the rush of it can still overwhelm me, the warmth of it feeling as good as the first time it was tasted. Aleathia Drehmer 2007 Published by Munyori Poerty Journal 10/07

"The Horai"

At the horizon line the sky is the color of summer skin touched with delicate jet trails crossing patterns into the thinning atmosphere. They whip stitch the clouds together, building the blanket of coming winter. I gather it to my chin. The moon hangs petulant, a silver sickle beheading the crowns of the Horai, scattering them among the rising stars, barely perceptible above the curves of the highway. The high road leans like a well built woman in repose, slicing the faded light with her hips, thick with sin and destruction I drive into willingly. Aleathia Drehmer 2007

"Mt. Llullaillaco"

She is Aclla, virgin of the sun, ripe at fifteen for sacrifice plucked from the horde of girls stabled with honor in the House of Chosen Women. The capacocha ritual deemed highest honor to a family and most sacred, is a journey that could claim more than the lives being offered, more than a virgin’s blood set to appease Incan gods to stave off the release of thick fire upon crops and cattle. The girl is frozen in a state of perfection with head bowed, dark hair skillfully plaited by mothers hands, strands falling over her shoulders, pieces lingering in front of her face touched in red pigments made from earth and berry. A dusting of coca leaves encrusted to her upper lip eases the pain of her sacrifice. And her body is bent like a bow, shoulders shrouded with the Iliclla, its’ brilliant red stripes clasped to her breast with hand turned silver. Legs are crossed, hands in her lap resting over her asco as if in prayer lost atop this icy pit, a crater formed from times the gods had no virgins. One looks at her face wondering if she tasted the salt laced into the ice as it fell on her pretty head 22,109 feet above the world. Aleathia Drehmer 2007

"Charcoal"

The prospect of sleep is dangerous and unpredictable, legs moving his body a ghost in the night, eyes blind and turned brain awakened to faces hovering on the underside of his lids. He is stripped naked of control and still, nimble feet traverse steep stairs leading him to small dark spaces crouched in the corner, a filthy cur his face in high fever with lines streaming from his fingertips stained in thick black charcoal. In the light, sheets twisted about legs like knots, he finds faces of women, arms, legs, breasts, lips etched into paper with delicate and intimate precision; the only evidences of his dissonance are ebony fingers and throbbing skull. Aleathia Drehmer 2007

"Complications of Love"

My day is made up of little cuts and digs drizzled with rubbing alcohol and he is oblivious to the way it stings me, damages me, even when told. He is blinded by the parameters of the fence he’s built around my love, around me to keep me from moving too far out of mediocrity. Aleathia Drehmer 2007 Published by Agua 2007