"The Past Is a Devourer"

"The Past Is a Devourer"
 Lynn Weber

I can still feel the album cover in my hands
the smooth thin cardboard
the vinyl inside not yet embossing its surface
the tall, thin man-child with his flowing blond hair
his beauty, his high cut cheekbones
He's an old man now, bald with a round puffy face
Like mine
I see him online, a grandfather, his magic vanished
like the vanished romance of life altogether
So little thrills me now—a geysir, my namesake's girlish ponytail,
my nephew's height and happiness
Even the mountains of Alaska seemed to pass me by
as I sat on the deck, squinting at their grandeur

I want to throw myself on a clifftop in Iceland
exposed to the stars and the dark and the night
and all those beautiful words and things
till I'm crushed, destroyed, decimated
like a crying newborn, red in the face, starting over.