Druk

By Robert Beveridge

You know the movie exists but
no one you know has ever heard
of it, much less seen it. You
describe it in exquisite detail
from the first shot, the blue
filter and the landscape, factory
rampant on a field of asphalt,
the workers on their way home
after a long day of barstool
assembly, to the final sequence
with the hero’s embrace
of the Notre Dame gargoyle,
the villain’s attempt to fire
a fatal shot without damaging
the stone. You have consulted
film historians, critics,
the inevitable yogi, to no avail.
This film, it seems, exists
only in your head; still you
haunt the revival theater,
check for news of a Joseph
Cornell retrospective, word
of a cache of Jean Vigo
silver nitrate behind a wall
in a cowshed in Vilnius.
But they never appear, stay
just as far out of reach
as the dual revolving
hamburgers in the climax.

Robert Beveridge (he/him) makes noise (xterminal.bandcamp.com) and writes poetry in Akron, OH. Recent/upcoming appearances in Eternal Haunted Summer, Pulsebeat, and Corvus Review, among others.