I am four years old, I am not a boy,
\nI am my father’s only child, and he is coaching me to kill.<\/p>\n
Coffee cans perched on a fence in the desert.
\nMore than anything they look like wingless rusted birds.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are bad guys,” he says, pointing at our targets,
\n\u201cand you are home alone.” <\/p>\n
No, I think,
\nthose are coffee cans.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe one in the middle,” he insists,
\n\u201cthat one is a killer.”<\/p>\n
And I am turning coffee cans
\ninto wingless birds<\/p>\n
into a bad man with many faces
\nwho later on I’ll meet <\/p>\n
in a parking lot
\nwhen he chases me to my door<\/p>\n
and later he’ll be the old clerk
\nselling Lucky Strikes and Soju<\/p>\n
then the guy from high school
\nwho finds me when I’m a well<\/p>\n
of water at my lowest and despite
\nthe little fact that I don’t love him<\/p>\n
we’ll get married and divorced
\nand later he’ll be the lump in my breast<\/p>\n
a branch in the street
\nthe failed breaks in my car<\/p>\n
he’ll be the day my heart doesn’t work
\nand family gathers in the hall.<\/p>\n
But right now I am small,
\nthe pistol is small and<\/p>\n
the pistol will jerk.
\nHow can my father know my heart?<\/p>\n
I am distracted by something shiny
\nin the dirt; for a moment I forget the worst.<\/p>\n
My first crystal-
\nthe size of a tooth.<\/p>\n
\u201cSteady,” my father says.
\n\u201cNow shoot.” <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
At the Gym<\/strong><\/p>\n From the elliptical machine where I race against <\/p>\n Say It To My Face<\/strong><\/p>\n I don’t listen to other conversations at the coffee shop I listen because I have symmetrical and pools I am grateful, since I don’t trust people Because you never know if mousy forgot her pills and he scolds her for talking so loud in a public place, and glasses (that’s me) clapping at the outburst, which must surely be performance art: Even if you’re not into self-preservation, it’s good to have ears. five Jelly Beans apiece, topped with plastic grass. than text messages. Ears to the hilltop above this small town, their coffees to investigate the smoke plumes, <\/p>\n Coffee cans perched on a fence in the desert. \u201cThey are bad guys,\u201d\u009d he says, pointing at our targets, No, I think, \u201cThe one in the middle,\u201d\u009d he insists, And I am turning coffee cans By Lauren Henley<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":119,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/119"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33045"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33045\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nother non-athletes on a non-progressing lane,
\nI can see into a bright room of people
\nwho seem to move under a spell of bliss,
\nas if each stretch of this limb or that one
\nis done in the warmth of the womb
\nand each effort makes them grow.
\nI can see the smooth, freckled scalps of the elderly,
\nthe decorated casts of the athletes,
\nthe arcs of question-marked spines,
\nthe glint of metal on slings under the beatific rays
\nof expensive track lighting.
\nWhatever this guild is, I’m not sure if I want in.
\nThe curtains keep me from really seeing their faces,
\nbut I imagine what one might feel
\nif taking the first steps of a walk after fifteen years
\ncurled in a wooden box, the relearning
\nfoot bones must do,
\nthe forgotten dialogue between brain and toe.
\nThere is also the helper,
\none large man at the front of the room
\nlifting his arms real slow
\nas if making the oceans rise, the dolphins to loom,
\nthen sink back again.
\nHe’s wearing a tight black tank top, his ponytail
\nsways as he demonstrates how to raise the arms,
\nhow to breathe, how to do both at once.
\nThen he lies on the floor like an overturned beetle
\nwith tattooed calves and dotted socks,
\nand the people turn themselves over so sweetly
\nas if today were their birthdays
\nand this gesture their finest gift.
\nWatching all this,
\nI’m sweating, my headphones playing Miles Davis,
\nand I think the injured people would like it,
\nthey would lay on their backs pretending they had trumpets,
\nfeeling like co-creators in the Birth of the Cool<\/em>,
\nand this way I could give them a present too,
\njust to say that I see them,
\nthat I’ve cared enough to watch from another room,
\nthat I’m sorry for what has hurt them
\nthat I might one day join in, the difference between us
\nsheer curtains. <\/p>\n
\nbecause I care<\/em> what the mousy girl-in-the-corner fears
\nor the couch guy hates
\nor care about the sciatic lady’s complaints
\nin between bites of her multi-grain bagel.<\/p>\n
\nchannels dug in the densest bone I possess,
\nand sound waves churn over the filaments
\nlike wind over fields of wheat.
\nAnd for that mastermind architecture of rooms, tubes,<\/p>\n
\nin public. One reason I listen hard
\nis to hear those who are trying not to be heard,
\nwho would sneak up with a shoelace, a piano wire,
\na Spanish execution stick\u2026<\/p>\n
\nthe morning after a long night hiding out,
\nher boyfriend Jimmy’s \u201cgrow scene”
\nbusted by the feds,
\nand she’d told him it would happen, god damn it,<\/p>\n
\nbut she can’t hurt him cause he’s got the money,
\nand besides who will comfort her later.
\nSo she figures she can unleash some narcissistic rage
\non the female with the small ears <\/p>\n
\nand because of delusions Mousy thinks everything she does
\nis for the greater good, even the rage-induced shoe-string
\ngarroting of an innocent, albeit judgmental,
\nyoung grad, and that the caf \u00e9 will applaud Mousy’s crime, <\/p>\n
\nsome bold statement no one computes
\nbut is too polite to contend,
\nbut man-oh-man their cosmic eggs have been cracked.
\nTa-dah! Death. <\/p>\n
\nThey’re a great place to hang your metal bars, hooks,
\nand daggers. Martha Stewart could do a segment about the utilitarian
\naspect of ears: store your cotton balls, Q-Tips
\naddresses and more, make them into Easter Baskets, <\/p>\n
\nUse them as inboxes instead of email accounts,
\nfortune cookies with notes like, Good things are happening<\/em> or
\nBuy milk<\/em> or You suck<\/em> or
\nTake me out<\/em> or You gave me herpes<\/em>. Better than e-cards. Better<\/p>\n
\nare good for so many things. Don’t get me started
\nabout the usefulness of ears.
\nHey, Guy-taking-up-half-the-couch, hey let’s you and me
\ndress the couch as a dragon, let us delusion <\/p>\n
\nlet us burn a message in the hillside with our dragon flame:
\nHello World, sweet World, you gonna say something?
\nSay it to my face. <\/em>And when the townspeople don’t fetch
\ntheir buckets and hoses, don’t even put down<\/p>\n
\nI’ll put my little right ear to the ground
\nand hear what the animals say about humans,
\nhear them say the hill is burning,
\nhear them say they’re going elsewhere.<\/p>\n![\"dsc04159_2\"](\"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/dsc04159_2.jpg\")
\nABOUT THE AUTHOR<\/strong>
\nLauren Henley<\/strong> is a graduate student at Pacific University of Oregon, in the low-residency MFA program. Her work has appeared or is forth coming in Hayden’s Ferry Review<\/em>, Eclectica<\/em>, White Pelican<\/em>, Projector Magazine<\/em>, WORK<\/em>, Breadcrumb Scabs<\/em>, Cloudbank<\/em>, The Delinquent<\/em>, and others. When not writing, she works as a reluctant high school substitute teacher and joyfully plays with her dog, hikes, and creates art. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"![\"dsc04159_21\"](\"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/dsc04159_21-150x150.jpg\")
I am four years old, I am not a boy,
\nI am my father’s only child, and he is coaching me to kill.<\/p>\n
\nMore than anything they look like wingless rusted birds.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cand you are home alone.\u201d\u009d <\/p>\n
\nthose are coffee cans.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cthat one is a killer.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n
\ninto wingless birds…<\/p>\n