Vincent Casaregola
Vincent Casaregola teaches American literature and film, creative writing, and rhetorical studies at Saint Louis University. He has published poetry in a number of journals, including 2River, The Bellevue Literary Review, Blood and Thunder, The Closed Eye Open, Dappled Things, The Examined Life, Lifelines, Natural Bridge, Please See Me, WLA, Work, and The Write Launch. He has also published creative nonfiction in New Letters and The North American Review. He has recently completed a book-length manuscript of poetry dealing with issues of medicine, illness, and loss (Vital Signs) that has been accepted by Finishing Line Press
Futures Foretold from within Small Boxes
[A Recitative for Bullets]
[Chorus I]
We live quiet lives, cramped as we are,
boxed in so small a space, siblings shining
despite the little light, and foretelling
the futures you would rather deny
yet still cannot and will not avoid.
Patiently, we lie and wait without
worry, without conscience or concern,
knowing that the firelight of your anger
and the dark heat of your hatred will
suffice to wake us to a new life in the air.
We will sprout invisible wings, then fly
up and out, riding waves of hot sound,
our paths, each unique, yet parallel
and powerful to destinations in your
once mild universe of silence and denial.
[Solo I]
I am one who will do carving with my time,
sculpting new spaces from the caverns
of flesh and bone, hollowing further
hollows within, bursting chambers,
undamming the flow of blood and air.
[Solo II]
And I, I am one who waits to greet
the family of a disgruntled man, whose
handgun speaks his rage at divorce
and no custody, speaks his angry entitled
self—I will cut one child in two for him.
My brothers and sisters will render
the others, laid out in a circle, like petals
from some horrid bloom, blood being
unfertile pollen now scattered random
and reckless around the living room.
[Solo III]
I, though, will meet my cousin, singing
past one another through the musty
convenience store air, he to split the chest
of the clerk, while I miss the thief’s head
but cut holes through throat and speech.
[Chorus II]
Together, a whole family of our kind
will cut through classrooms to teach new
lessons writ in blood and fear, or shatter
offices at work to show a dark economy
in patterns of red on carpet and wall.
[Solo IV]
Hiding in the small, shiny toy-like pistol,
gift from the husband who’d thought
his wife should be protected, I will live
because the toddler picked the purse
to fire this toy—I cut open mother’s heart.
[Chorus III]
And of course, as they say, the playful
boy will need counseling soon, as will
the one, only four, who with more play
will let us put holes through both
his sister’s lungs—so much blood, he
will stand in awe and mystery, then
never forget, indeed dream for life,
of his mother’s endless screams.
We are, indeed, the future—we know
our purpose as we know your will.
We wait, patiently, like seeds in dark soil
awaiting the heat of spring, like anger
in the dark soul that bursts unbidden
into morning or evening, but we will be,
and end, the future that you seek.
