I’ll flit in and out of the centuries and decades– the Italian masters
of marble– then brood over Rothko– something about Greek vases–
Dali… I want to spend my time thinking about the decisions I made
in this life, where I was timid, reserved, uninspired. The leaves will
swirl about me in fall while I scan for strange names in the graveyard.
Occasionally there is a fresh pit, waiting. In spring (my last?) the flowers
will bloom and I will arrange them in my mind into still lifes, thinking
of the youthful wanderings of the Dutch masters, their tables full
of game and fish. My ass will get sore in a large reading chair. My eyes
will deteriorate further. I will only listen to music of the period of the
artist I am studying. There are evaluations to be made, decisions to be
second-guessed. Why, in my second decade, did I choose to pull the wings
off of bugs for a living? Why not fall in love with clay, with rusted metal,
with canvas and horse-hair? There will be a desperation to the reading,
but also a satisfaction. I want my brain to grow stronger as my calves
atrophy beneath their thinning leg hairs. If you are young, and ambitious,
and have ideas about the color red, or purple, you can paint me sitting
there, growing ethereal, wishing for another life to live, a still one in blue…
Michael J. Galko is a scientist and poet who lives and works in Houston, TX. He was a 2019 Pushcart Award nominee, a finalist in the 2020 Naugatuck River Review narrative poetry contest, and a finalist in the 2022 Bellevue Literary Review poetry contest. In the past year he has had poems published or accepted at Lullwater Review, Noon: journal of the short poem, Eclectica, Clackamas Literary Journal, Cordite Poetry Review (Australia), and Tar River Poetry, among other journals.
Appears In
Cagibi Issue 23
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