notes on a traveler
he wonders aloud to himself where did the road end
for the one who kept walking? he is standing in the kitchen
hair unkempt and curling like hot wires. He wrings his hands
until his eyes are crushtight smile and unanswered sometimes
he paces, muttering about voices
echoing in the large stone room of his mind he mentions
the screaming but he is thick-knuckled so he tells
of the backpack days instead
of Alaska Indiana California Maine
of waking up drugged hungry anonymous
but he refuses to forget humor, winks a dark eye while he thinks
but forgets where he is sometimes
he dismantles the word trust. Gets lost when he knows where he is.
No bicycle now no rotting socks. A closet full of his own clothes
he doesn’t know what to do with he tells me
when he speaks he can’t decide if I’m trying to kill him or not.
Says he is stretching across oceans.
they really fucked with me face cracking
he laughs, his eyes are shaped like porcelain
when he talks about himself he gets chipped.
He carries a room made of himself
and he is afraid of losing it
can’t decide if he believes in location he is afraid
he will look down one day and not see a body
Previously published in The Rush
Audrey Gidman is a queer poet living on the Kennebec River in central Maine. Her chapbook, body psalms, was the recipient of the 2018 Elyse Wolf Prize and is forthcoming from Slate Roof Press. Her poems can be found or are forthcoming in Ogma Magazine, e·ratio, Q/A Poetry, mutiny! magazine, Confrontation and elsewhere. She received her BFA from the University of Maine at Farmington.
