Unraveled Lifespan Poem by Christos R. Tsiailis

Over the seventieth candle
-for the first time-
his attitude to change she did set forth.

Had he visited a psychoanalyst
it’d take a thousand sessions to go back so many years.
-and who has so much courage, I ask you, numb, mute-

So there he sits on the wheelchair,
hissing and blowing, fighting over that heavy birthday flame,
eyes tightly shut,
gums chewing toothlessly on that last
wish-
-that he promptly walks his rotten stick backwards,
leading the two gradually de-wrinkled legs

to fit in his long forgotten skis,
to slide the slope backwards,
little skin cancers repressed under the de-lit sun
walking de-swollen feet

to fit in his marathon racers recollecting rubber from the asphalt,
a whole forty-two years
and a hundred and ninety-two days
rewinding on the first-video-recorder-of-all-times’ tape

to fit in his rollerblades,
to roll back to where his pink fingers would grip on any adult pointer
to balance over an open, bloody, pumping hole,
to take his wasted cry back,
to reattach to his umbilical cord.

Reconnected, he opens one eye,
to tell her how he has changed, indeed
and then the other to focus-
-now ready to pop off
-just like that candle-
incognito.


(Nicosia,12/02/08)