"Shaker Mill Pond" by Parker Menzimer
I start in Massachusetts. Then I draw a long line to California when I breathe. And I lift my
pencil to say this is all I know, with grief
composition begins to decompose when the line is long enough to breathe
deeply I remember my mother too clearly and I lift the pencil
the line at first is unbroken
the pencil doesn’t know how long a line is
until I breathe in and draw attention to the quickness of my breath
until I lift my pencil, breathing makes space for composition between breaths
and decomposition as the pencil removes from paper and understanding begins as a line concludes
when I breathe in I remember my mother too clearly and I lift the pencil
drawing attention to the line begins mark-making in this context
climbing the guardrail to catch my breath observing a creek the water itself in an unbroken manner to the highway the trees itself to the highway differentiated the cars were running downstream equivocal the cement retaining wall breathed in like me and together we divided things, more so and no more so than the others traffic on the waters the silt was so blue cloudless I stopped to catch my breath in the time of day the river making an unbroken line from the cars till I flipped my pencil and replaced the retaining wall two deer later one dead fox are broken and unbroken limping toward the purple undergrowth
“Shaker Mill Pond,” but everything it was before is the space around the line
When my pencil erases that, or adds nothing, that’s a note on a place
or the idea to follow a series of marks to your fingers and what comes next
the first lake in California asks what body of water I am between breaths
I close my eyes and make the wrong mark many years later
that the retaining wall made the trees visible seems a given, that the car runs upstream
in a broken line, like and unlike water
I forgot the rocks as they were, each a note on the creek
The impulse is to lift the pencil but make unifying marks, breaking the logic of lifting
further downstream, unavoidably with the cars, I learn to spell in a childhood of language
that displaces sites of magic, inviting rust and fire. California graphite
spelling, tracing, and erasing
The stream can be redefined as intersum limen, what’s between I am and in between, so long as the field of composition is not clear-cut
The woods behind dissimulate necessarily, as trees bow under the pressure of visibility first
Wrongly, I map continuity to the backdrop, even as I lift my pencil to spell it, making distinct marks
it lies elapsed
as I spelled it
Parker Menzimer is a writer and editor in New York State. His work has recently appeared in Second Factory and Literary Hub among other places. He has shared work at The Poetry Project, MoMA PS1, Spoonbill & Sugartown, Knife Fork Book, Rural Projects, and other venues. Formerly of Princeton Architectural Press, he is the editorial director of Topos Press, an imprint of Topos Bookstore in Ridgewood, Queens. With Madeleine Braun he is the author of the artist's book TrueBlock, and a collection of his poems, illustrated by Anny Oberlink, is forthcoming from RATSTAR in 2021. He is an MFA candidate in poetry and a Truman Capote Trust Fellow at Brooklyn College.
