Two Earthlings, 48X60, John Brosio
Transmission
Terrified for the survival of our now,
Kristapher and I take the pickup for a test drive
through the ancient futures of Tenino, with its straggling veins of road,
dripping maple, and bullfrogs hidden in swamps, breathing.For who would have been prepared for the salvation of Karaoke Night
when it rose, sopping wet, up the hill to ruin everything,
flooding the leaves with blue light,
drunk on being heard?Or the stunned grief of ufo’s pulsed over packs of kids claiming stakes like little creeks
clogged with hand-me-downs, the ache of wet stars crucified to telephone poles.For days, Kris has been exploring the ultra-detailed reality of the truck’s belly
with his mind. It’s important to him. At times he needs
my help to hold parts of the manifold. After all,
we die into being.You hear the existence of the engine in your thoughts,
pumping and sweating, spinning the gulping,
dark lung-sugar of melted color-gardens
into the true nature of space-time,
experiential affection and
biospiritual potentiality.You see two mosquito hawks mating, caught in a spider-web caught inside the truck.
Look; the long bloated abdomens are trying to be each other.
The tiny pink souls trade molasses. I crack the window for a smoke,
watch them twitch uncontrollably, the way a seeable wind
suddenly leaks interestingly through my hair.You breathe the blood through your body.
You are the sentient sulpher and the blood.Insects swirl in black air like plankton,
sudden as headlights, as an ambulance
rushes with lights twirling like tiny suns and sirens
that yelp, as though electronic coyotes, not to enter.
I wonder what happened.Keep driving.
Up ahead an opossum feeds from a crushed opossum.
The crushed opossum doesn’t do anything;
The crushed opossum does everything?Up ahead,
darkness turns,
shaped as born,
blooms a blind light
from our eyes.“It just gets up and goes!”
“Fuckin’ overdrive, man.”
And it does.In other words,
darkness happens.
Perceived darkness happens.
The truck drives the way it does.He was afraid I didn’t love his belly.
A pair of unseen deer nibble the dewy chests of roses in fog.
A pillow drinks a warm boy’s odd tears in the blossoming dark for fun.
We have to stop for gas if we’re
going to make it home.I wonder if we’ll die tonight.
We don’t wanna die?
Etc.At Exxon,
the moist beauty of an overweight woman
fishes around her car for something extremely important
like the one moment. He bought me Raisinets with his heart.
We leak transmission fluid into the unknown thoughts of animals.This doesn’t stop.
So we build something to stop it.______________
Eli Holley
