Anthony De Gregorio

ANXIETY

by Anthony DeGregorio

(for Charles Simic)

When the dull groan

of a single-engine plane

grows louder & louder

before it comes into view,

you assume without pause

it is heading to the ground

at an unimaginable angle

rather than just getting closer,

still so high and safely suspended.

And when it is visible directly overhead

in the bright mid-afternoon October sun,

you sense something is wrong with its flight path.

That the nose is dipping, the

wings shaking like a body

captive to a severe demonic fever

trying to warm itself

with involuntary muscle movements.

It passes out of sight

still high in the sky,

steady on a straight unwavering course.

Then you begin waiting, counting seconds:

One thousand one, one thousand two, one thousand three . . .

Bracing for the crash. The mechanical exclamation of metal against earth,

the fierce explosion, the bone-shattering vibrations, an earthquake.

The impact like a meteor hitting, destroying the dinosaurs

and sending the entire planet into chaos.

The burst of flames and rising dust clouds

turning the pale blue and white mountains of sky

into an orange cast of ghost lands and echoing screams.

It is not merely the hallucinatory belched breath cloud

of the strong coffee you gulped down earlier,

burning your throat, drunk quickly to quench

a morning thirst for clarity,

or the exhale of a sharp autumnal

dip in temperature behind all this.

It is the color you now paint everything.

Erasing the sky as well as the solid ground beneath you.

It is the inescapable destiny of a soul trapped in a dream.

A nightmare of excessive worry every second.

This is what you tell yourself

as if that awareness alone

will ease the constant disquiet.

As if a diagnosis was anything other than a name

to call out to the shadows

in the middle of a particularly long night.

While Waiting I Bend Down to Tie My Shoe

by Anthony DeGregorio

And a thought suddenly occurs to me, so I consider its heady premise, i.e., that I may be dead.

Or is it merely the others also waiting in this motel-like decorated room

Who are no longer numbered amongst the living

And no longer tarry in their ranks?

Everything in the room is nondescript: uncomfortable doctor’s office chairs; particle board

Desks set perpendicular to double-length extra light folding aluminum tables; a benign painting

Portraying mid-afternoon: the sun an overripe crayon-citrus color, its shapeless reflection upon a Stagnant pond; surface scum, blemishes on the water’s placid face, afloat like vegetative islands Of desired vacation destinations; exactly three (3) radioactively-pleasant-orange goldfish, like Those rescued and relocated into airless plastic bags from the local F.W. WOOLWORTH CO., Or W.T. GRANT CO., or H.L. GREEN CO. 5 & 10 cent-type store and then kept at home for Maybe a week or two, their own deaths held in abeyance as they swam, crazed at first, then Floated Zombie-like, lackluster eyes, and severely depressed, in the small clear glass bowls of Their watery voyeuristic worlds—also purchased at one of the classic stores, perhaps following a Delicious & Nutritious! Hot Turkey Sandwich for 65¢ at the friendly endless counter, where red Backless seats twirled for the asking until your mother grabbed you and whispered loudly, “Stop it now, young man, or we’re leaving, and there will be no fish for you!”—until these poor pets, Destined for slow torture ending with a free flush to Goldfish Heaven vs. a quick consumption, Netted by employees in the bland smocks and aprons of memory’s black-and-white Google Search-influenced recall, were inevitably overfed or succumb to the murky toxicity of tap water-Filled homes, their own feces trailing, floating in designs sure to shame Mr. Hermann Rorschach.

The grass in these ne’er appreciated masterpieces sways, a cordial wave to all directions, the Foliage smiles in a floral rainbow of unnatural unison. The sky’s impossible blue blotted with Clouds puffy as cotton candy sold at local carnivals held in volunteer fire department parking Lots where the engine company’s one hook and ladder truck, whose secret stories of heroism and Sadness and duty were quietly acknowledged in the silver Mona Lisa smile spread across its Chrome grille, idled as a photo backdrop proudly displaying the town’s name and engine Number, and held parentally posed boys and girls, sticky faces smeared with the disappearing Magic stuff of the candy, while daydreaming adults, many still in creased work attire clinging to

Them, or dirt- and oil-stained denim bib overalls drooping, looked on. Pensive, tired. Hungry.

There is a sense of palpable absence in this waiting room.

A lack of tangible substance, of smell, of even residual warmth

Left upon a seat seconds after a stranger rises and another replaces him.

When I barely brush against someone,

Our wrinkled rolled-up sleeves pressing upon us like another skin

Whose cloth covers half our respective arms

With the fashionable shame of modesty,

It feels as if an internal breeze

Blows across the room

Exhaling time’s rattling breath,

Rather than the feeling of touch

From another person’s forearm epidermis

Whispering to my own quivering essence,

As I remain in wait,

On alert for a lurking nefarious presence

That so far only I seem to have detected.

Anthony DeGregorio’s writing has appeared or is scheduled to appear in various publications, including Libre, Abandoned Mine, Italian America Magazine, Aromatica Poetica, Bloom, Nowhere, Wales Haiku Journal, Polu Texni, and So It Goes: The Literary Journal of the Kurt Vonnegut Museum and Library.

He taught writing at Manhattanville College for twenty years, and in another life or two or three he worked in various capacities for the Department of Social Services, much of that time while teaching at night. Prior to that is anyone’s guess, but don’t let that stop you.