When Your Head Went Through the Windshield...

Two poems by Vincent Trimboli

Author

Publish Date

June 7, 2017

Vincent Trimboli is a native of West Virginia and a proud Appalachian

When Your Head Went Through the Windshield It Reminded Me That Grief Sounds Like Whip-Poor-Wills

We bury you a little more each Tuesday. The sky
today is carnival-glass. The way the wind blows.
Your destruction was of your own design. Because I ate
finger sandwiches to revive you. My stomach is still
churning. Churned. They said the impact was enough
to make us wonder. Were you strapped down like patients?
The radio was saying something
about the worth of the Chinese yen and it was wet.
You were wet too. The way that the porch-dog shakes off the storm.
A house that’s shaken by ghosts or the way things seep in:
mourning, September, slick. Has it been weeks
since you have been here? Forgetting how to
is one thing. A hollow mouth is quite another.
Laura said projected. I thought backlit—
your body just a character climbing the screen.
In the cavity of you I drew a nest
on cellophane. I found four corners
with my fingers. Carefully, carefully
I lined you up with yourself.
Anna listens for the sound you make now. She takes
to calling a wave a crash. To your Mother
you sound like crushing. Your father can’t even speak
his own name. In the yard,
the Buick’s corpse collects rain water. Two birds bathe
in what’s left of you. I throw rocks
just to see if they can still fly.

Glossolalia: Greenbank WV 1987

For S.E. Kenneth Hinkle

“Psammetichus then himself heard them say the word, upon which he proceeded to make inquiry what people there was who called anything “becos,” and hereupon he learnt that “becos” was the Phrygian name for bread.” — Herodotus translated by George Rawlinson

Quiet now, little starling

Have they told you that
there is only one way
to speak to heaven

That they have forgotten
these mountains stacked
with prayers

Like great bowls
of fine-china filled

with the heaviest of cream
rippling with an electric language

of its own

That God is there,
slithering amongst snakes
that shy away from handling

against the breast

That they may hide
freely at the feet
of warmer beasts

This is the key to true liturgy

Lest we not forget
that hymns are songs
of freedom

And that, my little prince,

in your kingdom of Andromeda
and paper stars

may your voice crease night

and pull the richest gold
from the throats
of celestial swans

Like shimmer, like static,
like glisten or drum

And the body we share
is language

and for the rest
is silent

Vincent Trimboli is a native of Elkins, West Virginia, and a proud Appalachian. In addition to poetry, his interests include visual art and performance art. He holds a B.A. in theater and an MFA in creative writing from West Virginia Wesleyan College. His poetry can be found at Connotation Press, Still: The Journal, Entropy, and West Virginia University Press’s anthology of Appalachian writing, Eyes Burning at the Edge of the Woods. His essays can be found in Clemson University’s Upstart Journal, among other publications.