Editor’s Note
When I first came across H.T. Reynolds’ poems, I had to learn how to react to them. I like that conundrum while reading anything because it compels me to re-read. I like it when my initial reaction to a work of art confounds me, puzzles me, or presents itself like a riddle that must be solved. I was taken by the dense acrobatics of ‘Cowabunga,’ its profanity, its sense of humor, its somewhat sad, self-deprecating and comical speaker. Reading ‘I Had My Flintstones Push-Up,’ I obviously could not help but picture the vague memory I have of watching the Flintstones on television, only to find that the object of focus in the poem kept shifting, line by line, to ultimately settle, at least for me, on the lines ‘how his mother’s cancer / would claim her before his own.’ Once I truly took that line in, I was compelled to re-read Reynolds’ poem and discover how it both destabilized the poem and endowed upon it a more concrete shape to my mind. Similarly, with ‘Never Neverland,’ I noticed how my mind was anchored to the spoon—‘held out’ and empty save for the fullness towards ‘this world’s wonder’ that could belong either to the spoon or to the speaker, only to be called ‘empty’ later and described as hanging around the speaker’s neck—and the tie—which belongs both to the young Peter and the speaker, and takes on the eeriness associated with suffocation, tightness, constriction—so that by the end they became stranger, ghostlier objects that straddled the boundaries between life and death signifying how life assumes a fragility, an always-near-possible-endness under pervasive gun violence. In other words, these poems’ meanings and layers continue to bafflingly intrigue me and deliciously haunt me; even the answers to their riddles sound like riddles to me.
—Devanshi Khetarpal
The Bombay Literary Magazine
I bet Michelangelo never had to pick off the pepperoni his brother insisted on adding to the family pizza. Never had to add canned mushrooms they nuked in the microwave so the temperature would match, so the texture wouldn’t be so jarring. I bet Leonardo would have been able to plead his case to his [mother], wouldn’t even need to pull rank or a blade to get his way. Donatello would have synthesized a mushroom pizza from his brother’s leftover crust, without the stink of smoked meat. But I was Ralphael—trenchcoat and temper, red-raging disobedient son, bed-bound and immobile—content with the only compromise I could get. Michelangelo knew how to smile buried under the city’s filth, glide along the curved concrete on a skateboard like Icarus with wheels—too cool for wings, never needing the lecture. I dragged my body from my bed in our living room—my swaddled legs in plaster shells clunking to the trailer floor—to my board with brakes, with handles—a chariot that barely fit within those walls—but I tried, as he would, screaming at the top of my lungs, COWABUNGA!, before launching myself toward the front door. The door gaped open like I was Alice, catapulting myself from building top to fire escape—from the Rat King to Shredder—from wheelchair to walking. I bet Michelangelo never had to pick himself up from the floor, turn himself sideways like a beached capital A, drag himself around his chariot, toward the ocean—his bed—and hope to not suffer the indignity of a snagged sheet. I bet Leonardo would have had the respect for his own room. I bet Donatello would have invented proper clothes that fit—would have avoided the Velcro, the sweatpants, going commando. I bet Ralphael would have chewed off his own legs—carved out his hip bone to play hockey with Casey Jones. With the capsized chariot wheel still squeaking, my bound legs—my entombed skin’s thrumming itch ignored—I took a bite of pizza, whispering, cowabunga, sharing a laugh and high five with my green brothers.
my neighbor had wheezing lungs
burst into medical language
like a procedural alarm clock
a wake of scrubs with stethoscopes
settling upon a proper margin of oxygen
hooked to his throat like a fuel pump—
but he never went anywhere—couldn’t
go anywhere we had that in common
long after I’d finished my push-up,
reminded my legs to walk
he’d discover how persistent his body
could be, how his mother’s cancer
would claim her before his own,
how his body will remain stuck
wherever they’d planted him
2012: Sandy Hook Elementary mass shooting & I begin teaching 5th grade
when Peter found an empty bowl,
I pictured myself with the spoon
held out—full
of this world’s wonder
how the closet had a depth
those near the top
simply could not see
when Peter picked me up,
he found my empty stomach
yearning for fabricated puddings
my weight settling in his wrists
the Lost Boys smiled,
knowing he was back again
when Peter found his wings,
I pretended to fly along
but my imagination faded—
an empty spoon hung
from my neck
when Peter wore his tie,
a burial plot
I don’t remember
purchasing exposed—
soil tasted with an adult tongue
now I watch the magic kindling
ignite behind my children’s eyes
I draw my keys towards my belt
& fasten my tie
Acknowledgements
Image credits: Rene Magritte (1898 -1967). La Valse Hesitation (The Hesitation Waltz), 1950, Oil on canvas, 35 x 46 cm, Leopold Museum. Courtesy, WikiArt
Author | H. T. Reynolds
H.T. Reynolds is a teacher and father whose work has appeared in Rust & Moth, Moonstone Arts Center, The Rising Phoenix Review, Boundby, and The Amazine, as well as in his full-length poetry collection, Chatter in the Skull (BookLeaf Publishing). His poetry often explores American mythology through persona, the effects of systems on the vulnerable, trauma through the body as witness, and grief’s transformative nature. He has served as poetry co-editor at River and South Review for over two years. He holds an M.A. and an M.F.A. from Wilkes University, where he was awarded the Beverly Blakeslee Hiscox ’58 Scholarship.
