Fata Morgana

T. J. McLemore

Here at the land’s edge, remember?

Earth pulled back its sheets for us,

riffled the pages on its broken spine.

Layers sheer as mica, rough as the surf

the ocean surges in and sighs through.

Distance hands its judgments down

in blue. Brown hair blown across a face is sweet,

sure, but this photo almost missed you. Blur

of eyes, empty mouth, you stretch into 

a trick of the light, the sea wind lifting 

  

each strand of you to the folded hills,

the landscape gathering what it can.

A Piece of Music

T. J. McLemore

It was always harder 

to go downstairs, I say,

than climb up, 

      what with chores, fights,

cold dinners waiting below. 

Wish you hadn’t moved 

with your mom, he says.

Went all churchy on me,

he says, and I laugh. 

  Seriously, you okay?

—Yeah, just lost

 my feet, he says, on the way 

down. His breath too heavy on the line.

Don’t tell your mom. Or Beth.  

    Yeah, I say.

Then we don’t speak. 

         Remember, he says at last, how hard it was

     to get my mom’s piano up here?

*

Five men wrestled it up all afternoon, one stair 

at a time, damaging the first step and knocking rods 

from the banister. They left it askew, streaked

with greasy handprints in the middle of the room.

Dad slipped each man a few bills. As they wheeled it

to the corner above the stairs, its low strings rumbled.

Dad had it tuned up for lessons. Beth and I took turns

practicing scales at the bench, our feet dangling down.

After grandma passed, he carried up a Mayflower box

filled to the brim with long paper rolls. He lifted out

one roll to show us how to grasp the eyelet gently

from the yellowing paper like peeling the backing 

off a Band-Aid. He slid back the wooden door above

the keys, clicked the roll’s plastic endcaps in place. He turned

the take-up spool, feeling for the notch to hook the eyelet to. 

The roll unfurled. Every time one played, I’d try 

to read notes in the patterns of holes in the paper,

but it was a language I could never learn. Those weeks

before Mom discovered the affair, I’d chase Beth upstairs

all the way from the bus stop. We’d put on Chopin 

and stare at the ghost-played keys; we’d set Joplin 

at full speed and dance around the room. By the time

it got too hot to hold our fort on the fence line,

we found grandma’s hymn rolls, digging all the way

to the bottom of the box. But that thy blood was shed 

for me, we sang together. The words came down

beside the holes, and we followed along. Crown him 

the lord of love, we sang, And downward bend his burning 

eye at mysteries so bright. Even when I didn’t sing, 

the words still stirred like coals inside me.

*

Yeah, I say. I remember. 

    The movers, Beth and me,

parties for a hundred 

playoff games, pinball machines,

    a dozen whitetail mounts—

and god knows what else 

has gone up those stairs. 

I bet the carpet’s gone slick. 

Man, I miss

being up there, I say, 

and let’s forget about the rest.

Yeah, he says. 

Yeah, I say—

and I can’t stop 

seeing his fall, a Coke can 

rattling down in front, 

        each step banging at him, 

his arms flailing wild 

as notes punched down a roll.

Resort Self-Portrait

T. J. McLemore

Lightning’s a white thread snapping

on a roiled sky, heaven trying

to hoist up earth. Thunder interrupts 

the gloating of birds after rain. Ducks

feed in the shallows of the sprinkled

lake. Cattails rebound under the flash

of red wings.

              When the sky falls 

quiet at last, our scripted world 

peeks from its shell: mowers return,

revving their engines, downcast

golfers suddenly hasten their lunches,

and soon the sunbathers will again 

lay siege to the pool. 

    No necesito 

nada más, I say brokenly to the maid

as she enters, Gracias, as little threads

keep breaking down the horizon,

always tugging at the same few places.

 
 
 

about the writer

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T. J. McLemore is the author of the chapbook CIRCLE/SQUARE (Autumn House, forthcoming 2020). His poems have appeared in New England Review, Crazyhorse, 32 Poems, Adroit Journal, Willow Springs, Michigan Quarterly Review, and other journals; individual poems have been featured on Poetry Daily, selected for Best New Poets, and nominated for the Pushcart Prizes. McLemore has received awards and fellowships from the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, Autumn House Press, Boston University, Crab Orchard Review, and Poetry by the Sea. He serves as a poetry editor at Descant Magazine and is a doctoral student in English literature and environmental humanities at the University of Colorado Boulder.