BY FALSE LIGHTS
ISSUE TWO: July, 2019
BY FALSE LIGHTS
How then does light return to the world after the eclipse of the sun? Miraculously. Frailly. In thin stripes. It hangs like a glass cage.
Virginia Woolf, The Waves
on a road that felt like a half slack bridge:
about to fall away: were two
people: one asking
the other if a person
is like a laugh
track: or maybe if
a laugh track
is like a fake candle:
like if
maybe it’s the point that there’s light
but no heat: who wants
to get burned anyway:
and if it’s like that I’d rather be
the biggest fakest laugh: the kind
you can’t mistake
as honest: maybe nervous:
maybe flirty:
but neither one is really the point of the fake laugh:
one says to the other:
if it’s like that maybe
I’ll be a real candle
when I’m 80: almost dead: at that age
you can be
a real candle with an honest flicker:
but for now: I’m trying not
to drive us off the edge: one says:
you’re my broken candle:
my nervous cough:
and the other says: yeah:
yeah I guess I am:
just trying to make light
without the heat:
my laugh
turns on and off: and it’s
unbalanced: now too much, too little,
at the wrong time altogether:
and to slip is just to make
a kind of portrait: walk
on down the road:
not to fall the whole way:
just a bit:
and see how we all catch
ourselves: a hand
upon the rail:
one foot slightly back:
or sacrifice
a briefcase to the mud:
is a lost umbrella worth the time it takes
to wash my pants:
one says to the other: he fell & I just had to laugh:
and that’s what makes disaster funny:
it’s those little honesties
that give off light: the other says:
I try not to make light of things
like that: the other
other says: I know: the car
flips
on its headlights: & we strain
to see the night
past all its night:
one says: I can’t stop
thinking: & the other says: I know:
you think so fast it hurts:
I want to tell you what I’m thinking but I can’t:
one says:
the other then: give it a rest: it’s always angels with you:
it’s true: implicit always
is the question of angels:
how many are there:
how do they move
their hands: and once they have them do they pride
themselves on having wings: &
do they wonder
at flying like the first men
felt when they first flew:
or is it ordinary: anybody’s guess:
the angels make a kind of line:
a small applause: the beginning
of a piano nocturne: asking
those at night: how do you feel about light:
tonight I am only concerned with light:
how it is seen:
what power the eye has
to open it: its phrasal disintegration
over the small wash of cones and rods:
the eye is the center
of perception:
in this way
it is the hole of light:
I tried a while to avoid the vision
in the visionary:
like there wasn’t something normal
in disaster: something boring
to the sky: & so
the eye collects our light: the edge of blankness:
a long thin visionary line that breaks
across the dark:
to have been denied light
is to forget those things:
and to have been denied light wholly
is to have no memory at all:
because you can’t remember
the dark: you can’t remember absence:
you remember the thing
that’s absent,
not the hole it makes:
you can’t
even feel the hole,
just the edges
it has: the other says:
that isn’t right
for absence is a thing itself
& nothing as small
as this: this this:
is available
to the angels:
in heaven even streetlamps hang
like angels
of the lord: the sacred dead
stretched out
on side streets, main streets,
everywhere: a fucking confluence
of angels: thick with light
remembering the light
and what I have to know is this:
what of the wings
that carried them in life:
how wide were they: how many
feathers burnished on the amber sky:
how far up
is heaven’s whole:
is the flight long: & do they tire:
for the weight of their wings cannot
be separated from them:
for to weigh
nothing is to be unable to fly:
an impressive nothingness,
sure, but accomplishing nothing:
I am sitting in a yellow
bar: it’s dirty & a song comes
on the speaker system
sadder than I was
prepared for:
a young tom waits
is crooning halfway
to brokenness: how is it
that a young man can have
such capacity for nostalgia:
no one’s sadness matches
the melancholy drunk: sure
there are deeper images
of loss: the death of loved ones: family
members gone: but now the barman fades,
devolves in an aging light: the image of
a man slumped over at the bar grows wide:
the man whose light is lost already:
found in amber carriages of glass:
his is that beside the light: the shadow
or the bulb: the song is over:
and the moment breaks: I have never been
so wrong: imagery’s
blank narcissism overtakes
the world: but god
the world is large & so I try
to say as many words
as possible before time takes
me onward & I have to go: I want to say
hello: but do the right thing, & shut up:
I tell myself I have to get on:
if only for a while:
outside:
I’m still waiting for the visions
of angels: flaming: protective: born
in a taxi cab: weeping
elegies to the god who drives
them: stopping on another
avenue: emerging
fully grown in form: but still
unformed in mind:
where what will soon emerge is somehow blocked:
it is 9pm in New York City:
35th avenue: & I am waiting
to be let in to my girlfriend’s
apartment by her roommate:
she is not there: she has been
missing for 3 hours:
I waited in the bus
terminal from upstate New York:
where it is somehow cold
& stuffy at the same time: she is out
drinking with her coworkers: I should
have gone home then: I almost broke
it off: but I stayed: I am let in
by her roommate: she comes
home later: & we go to sleep
without talking: a candle flickers
in the window: she can’t sleep
without it: in her small bed I roll
over: staring at the wall: I tell her:
it’s okay: of course it’s not okay:
I don’t realize at the time:
that she was out with another man:
I assume that she was drunk:
and maybe she was:
the smoke of machines rises:
New York rumbles impossibly outside:
I try to shake the memory of it:
but still feel so much shame:
that was 2 years ago
& only now I am figuring out
what happened: connections
never made before: there are no angels:
we know that:
but in the distance some horn wails:
someone yells:
we all just want to sleep:
one says: I guess
I’m sitting on the elegy
of my beliefs:
the other turns & says: when can I be done
with this: it isn’t possible to be
religious in this century:
we know too much: god’s greatest strength
was answers: but the questions
make no sense these days
one says: half my life
is all in order: a smooth
unbroken line:
the image of a stable self
& what’s half true is true enough:
my line is getting long,
if rough: the other half
of me hangs lowly: just
another shape that’s shaped
by unseen hands:
my boredom is a legend with no book: the mind’s
a jagged thing & I collect
a set of lamps
to see the shadows that it casts:
it’s broke
but not yet broken:
despite all this I like my life:
I try to tell you this: instead
I make a joke about the blues: I type: lol:
into my phone:
to text you: I stumble
in my mouth and haven’t
said a word: but it’s
a real laugh: a laugh, out loud, for once:
one turns
on the radio & says
to the other, pointing to the dash: everything
these days
is always on:
and with a symbol
to make sure
I know it’s on: a tiny
light: as though the sound
were not enough
the other says: and don’t forget the phone,
the printer, television, comp: or hell,
the fridge itself
feels some strange need
to let me know it’s on:
if certainty could change: I’d make
a full epistemology of tiny lights:
those things we curate, charge:
at this hour my mind’s electric: I hold
my brain in my left hand
& count three mirrors in the car
as you drive on: if we’re honest, one admits:
I hate light—I like the winter better, and prefer
a small lamp to the sun:
it’s why I drive at night: the drive
is over: but we’re never done:
I’m always up: the other
says: I’m talking
to myself: is there no work
or word
to get me though
this time: the brightness of the streetlamp roars:
the brain is chattel: static: flipping through:
it’s just that you’re
my favorite channel:
I’m sitting at a cafe now:
strange lights
surface through the glass that spreads outside:
how artificial brightness is at night:
yet we need light: my people
now make moments
in the night: we live strangely
out of sync with earth’s
diurnal course: I feel most
at home at 3am: as earth’s large shadow wraps
like angel wings about
the time we ought to sleep
but all this talk of angels
smacks of neglect: we talk of light
like there isn’t something else
that light creates
beside the light:
there is another one
who floats on wings
throughout these histories:
of course, the image of his wings
is overwrought:
overdetermined:
they say he is not one
of those with light: I think
they’re lying
when they say his place is darkness:
you were mine & when we came
here it was always
disruption with you:
a crooked soul:
an emblematic cloudbreak
in the rain:
we met light like freezing rain
meets barren ground
before it’s full of ice:
our principle was change,
accumulation:
so in this great city
I cite your arms,
like lines, against
the presumption
of evil in all men:
I sought the moon
in all things
& all things
in your hands
today, it is 3:24am & I steal what I can (everything) from the angels
yes, even individual letters:
moments like this:
it is the moment
of your resurrection
from the dead:
although
you are blind
you cannot see
how frail you are
in this frame
the shot is composed
impeccably,
with you just right
of the center
the melancholy
ardor of a birch
wood in winter
surrounds you:
there are so few
leaves left after this
the first
light snow:
only here
and there
a small yellow
shows through:
at this point,
the cancer
is already
in you:
your smile
seems like
an error
but the camera takes
it all
in
with its light
something you would say is like: who has time
for that these days: dying
is a bore: can’t we just
be done with that already: & the other says:
here’s one thing
I hate: it’s being damp: you know
that time in each October
or when you forgot
to wear a rainproof coat: you’re not exactly wet
but all of you is cold:
and going
to be cold:
it’s not like you can dry off being damp:
a towel does no good:
the damp pervades: & lingers
on new clothes:
one says: do you want to hear
about a good day
that I had the other day
it was almost like nothing: breakfast, clouds:
lunch: & work:
the little details:
coffee 3, maybe 4 times: toast
for breakfast:
yogurt, too:
I mean it’s hard to say why it was good:
it was like yesterday:
but better: you know what I mean?
something in a Thursday maybe:
another thing you’d say a lot is: fuck it
so today I’m saying: fuck it
there was once: when you walked in
unexpectedly from the night & asked:
can I say hello for a moment:
I said: sure I’m not working on
anything, just sitting:
you didn’t bother
unbuttoning your coat: for some reason
this is my favorite memory of you:
you said: I’ll just be
a moment, I saw you
from the window on my way
home and thought I’d say
hello:
it is 3:53am, & the snow
looks so strange from this window
in the orange light.
and so? I burnish now
my shoulders at the door: I asked
you if you wanted tea:
you said no,
only that you wanted
to say hi:
you did,
and then went out:
& the other says:
well here’s the shadow, then:
& the other says:
& the other says:
& the other says:
who has time for death these days:
absence: resurrection: christ & all of that:
I’m bored: what light is lucifer’s
to let me know he’s on:
I hope he’s got bravado left to sell
because I’m cycling through everyone:
in some strange way I think
that I might end up liking this:
I’m tired though:
how long until we don’t wake up:
I’m asking for another: for a
friend, I guess:
I pretend the satellite
that sends my text
knows god: this lol
reads like a prayer:
& there we are again
at the clover fields
before the white
moon: you said the moon
was the one thing
that never texted you back:
it couldn’t have been
otherwise that late:
how queer an architecture
we made of evening,
pressing out
into the cold, it was
still cold that time
of year, like some great coat
held up by wind &
turned around,
before settling:
we spoke in acronyms:
like everyone we knew:
so many different ones
for laughter: rofl: lol: smh:
I can’t believe you said that irl:
the devil’s beautiful:
the moon’s on call:
there’s nothing else can go this way:
what light is there that intercedes
in this: I’m told that light
is the symbol for what’s best
in all of us: it lets us know
we’re on, at least: I’m sick
of all these symbols now: fuck off: & isn’t
there a melancholy light:
one dim: far dimmer than
this white light we’re used to
in the day: it hung
above the drunk: it hangs
on me: it lights cafes and bars
at night: it lights the me
that hangs myself, the me that drops,
the me that cuts me down:
it is the smallness we keep on when sleep
can’t sleep: you wore a blue light:
one that proved too bright:
& I can’t stand the brightness: if I could
have a way of seeing all
my own, I might make better use of light:
the empty New York streets exist
only seconds at a time:
it’s 4am: too late
for work: too early
for beginnings:
it’s just time:
a time: a color
of my own
short
light.
EVELYNN BLACK is a trans writer from Seattle. She received her MFA from Cornell University. Her poems appear in Requited, Peculiars Magazine, Lammergeier Magazine, and other publications