Matthew Rotando, Summer 2016

The Beast That Lunges
Matthew Rotando

The best thing about remembering is that it’s in your hands. You revolt against sleep and become a phantom in time, moving through rooms and visions as a wiry, feral child. You don’t need words to eat, to find shelter. You taste water in air and move to it with your thirst. You kneel over a lake at night. The outline of your face is a surprise. You breathe hard and lunge into recollection. You run backwards and laugh at your heelprints in the earth. Snakes slide back to their skins. Fires grow into trees. Pearls soften to sand. You unwrite the future for the happy beast you are becoming. Rain whispers quietly upward. The past begins to show. Clarity is dimness. Your hands as clouds, as fins, as roaming notes.

Matthew Rotando has recently published illustrated poems in Drunken Boat and Everyday Genius. His books, The Comeback’s Exoskeleton (2008) and Hail (forthcoming in late 2016), are both published by Upset Press. He’s also been printed in Shampoo and The Tishman Review. He earned a B.A. from Duke University, an M.F.A. from CUNY Brooklyn College, and a Ph.D. from the University of Arizona. Matthew is an avid cyclist and has toured both the eastern and western coastlines of the USA.