B. Dixon

Flowers in a Jar yesterday she had forgottento place her freshly picked flowers in a jar full of water, so whenshe did they spent the day wilting. while she slept, they drankand straightened accordingly, looking for the sun they spendtheir entire lives trying to reach. in a day or so, she suspects,their heads will open and they will bear their thoughtsto her, sweet smelling and yellow. the tragedy, of course, with flowersin a jar, is always forgotten as those picked because of their beautyand ability to mark celebrated moments are never granted their returnto the ground from which they came for another chance to touch the sun.They are stuffed in bags, among our egg shells, our tin foil,our spoiled leftovers, to be taken by a truck that comes on Tuesdaymornings, usually while we are asleep. In the Road walking barefootin the road, a soft steam rising—the ghost of a passing storm.I am exhaustedfrom my mental deconstructionof coincidence—that is—of my beingamong the horny cicadascrying into the voidof this fading afternoon.Do they knowthey are—always have been—the sound of summer?I oncewalked barefoot—had smaller feet then—in the crabgrass yardtheir humslike the eternal Omemanating from the mighty oaks above. I amnow only a fragment of that memory—someone elsein some other place.How many cicadashave come and gone since then?I heard oncethat they liveonly for one day.Seems insignificant.Yet still—I remember. Lightness I finish reading the scenewhere Tereza separates from her body and watches herself orgasmat the hands of a man who isn’t Tomas. I decide thento lay in the old hammock outside tied hastily to two trees,thin and waning, at the edge of the yard. I step in with caution—keeping one foot on the ground, as I lower my backsideinto the hammock’s center, the knots tied on either endpulling tight and wearing grooves into the trunks that now bendunder my weight. Lifting my grounded foot,I give myself to the hammock the momentum of my leap swinging meright, then left, then right again, before slowing to a gentle tremble—like Tereza’s naked body did as the eternal hand reminded herwhat it meant to exist. I look to the clear summer sky;the sun becomes a kaleidoscope bleeding through the leaves aboveand a seagull I cannot see cries from somewherenear enough for me to hear. From afar, I watch myself,rocking gently, mere inches from the ground—weightless,like I always have been and had so easily forgottenuntil now. B. Dixon is an emerging poet whose writing draws on his study of Zen Buddhist philosophy and his work with those experiencing homelessness in Boston, MA. His writing has been printed in the J Journal, the *82 Review, Boston Literary Magazine, the Frogpond Journal, Right Hand Pointing and the Unbroken Journal, among others. B. Dixon has also contributed articles to the Institute for Meditation and Psychotherapy's Quarterly Journal, "Cushion and Couch."

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