Self-Portrait in Air

By Salvatore Difalco

I had a tail, penciled in as an afterthought.
Above me a red cloud looked like an algorithmically
induced growth, fueled by repressed rage or a fraught
spiritual force finally finding its voice. Forget
the abstractions popping up like quantum particles
then disappearing. The roots of the feverish sally
grew under the parietal bone near the coronal suture.
The tiny appendages connected to my bulk,
besides the tail, defined delicacy and their fragile natures
meant that sudden movement could break them off
and send them floating into the papery ether.

My unease intensified with each passing second,
I wanted to open my throat and shout awful things
at the artist who failed so lamentably depicting
my relationship with space and time and the colour red.
Save me the prime numbers that somehow undergird
the pattern of reality, I don’t understand them.
If my head finds itself in a sealed black box
how long before I am declared officially dead?
The rest of my body might be dancing like
a man on a short noose, his neck still intact,
but his larynx, pharynx and hyoid bone collapsed.

Free styling doesn’t flush everyone with euphoria.
Many desire stairs or ladders or sturdy handrails
to reach their comforting plateaus and plazas.
And who could fault them when everything fails,
even our finest machines and conceptions?
Fine then, one hears from the gazpacho wings,
but where are the victims in this diorama? Everywhere
and nowhere, Jefe. The man with a tail now watched
a red silk parachute slowly descend to earth.
Who was the being floating down so gently?
Why, none other than Mr Inconclusive Ending.

Salvatore Difalco is a Sicilian Canadian poet and short story writer currently residing in Toronto.