Print This PostLight Pollution, Match.com Potlatch
No man is an island. Some men are on islands.
Some men are on two.
Odysseus flicked his phone awake
began to type:
“Penelope, my darling, I —”
Calypso came into the room.
Phone disappears into pocket, on silent.
Whisper I to you:
“Come on the drift of the moon. The light flies
from our windows and our streets to space
It hits tiny bits of dust, bounces back aground,
hits your eyes; hits my eyes.”
Or eyes stare at the dull impeded glow of the skies.
Penelope marries a suitor. Odysseus moves in with Calypso.
Nausicaa sits on the beach; the stars they are shining
she thinks and looks up and counts them. Twenty-eight.
Twenty-eight points of light, she thinks, how’s that for a metaphor?
It’s her twenty eighth birthday, and Odysseus has messaged her.
A million pixels of light in her eyes, a picture of a tripod he drew:
“When you dressed me and when I sang to you.”
Say you to me:
“Clutch to the bits of the truth. I fly
slowly now, you know, it seems. My voice
carried over the waters, hits your ears.”
My ears strain to hear your voice, my house hums.
No island is an island anymore.
When Alcinous finally dies, his house is filled with the hum
of the fruits of his works. Faces line the benches,
Flowers line the walls, the alcoves spill out irises,
The tripods are full of stew. Odysseus brushes Alcmene’s ear with his mouth,
After kissing her cheek, “your beauty still the sweetest fruit of all.”
I loved you when the sky still held only gods;
you are divine too, you know,
And when I was young I remember lying awake
in the desert
well past midnight, millions of stars, clouds of them,
uncountable light. All the gods up there then still are,
I presume,
Unless they’ve been released by light pollution,
Carried down on the light we reflect on ourselves.
When I slept, I dreamed your profile.
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Ammon is a philosopher and writer who dreams of being a full-time roustabout. He lives in Toledo, lured by glossy pamphlets sent by the University of Toledo promising him a view of the Ottawa River in exchange for the occasional seminar on phenomenology, aesthetics or ethics. In his academic writing, he explores the intersections between philosophy and literature. In his creative writing, he explores the boundaries of good taste.
