{"id":2976,"date":"2023-04-27T19:51:54","date_gmt":"2023-04-27T19:51:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/oxmag\/?page_id=2976"},"modified":"2023-04-27T19:51:54","modified_gmt":"2023-04-27T19:51:54","slug":"aubade-from-a-balcony-in-winter-after-watching-la-notte-by-max-lasky","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/oxmag\/aubade-from-a-balcony-in-winter-after-watching-la-notte-by-max-lasky\/","title":{"rendered":"“Aubade from a Balcony in Winter,\u00a0After Watching La Notte” by Max Lasky"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
So once again you begin here\nat the beginning, near the end,\n\nas the human language you lost\nyou now regain. In the doorway\n\na woman loitered, imagined or real,\nit doesn\u2019t matter. She wore a name\n\nlike a white dress and smiled slightly,\nas if to offer you advice, if only\n\nyou knew then just what she meant.\nIn a hospital bed your friend said\n\n\u201cThe advantage of a premature death?\nYou give success the slip.\u201d You slipped\n\na note into her clammy hand because\nyou\u2019re accustomed to failure, you like\n\nits scent. And since all the good Catholics\nare dead, the waiter with champagne\n\npropped on a tray didn\u2019t offer you any,\nnot one glass. It must be your clothes,\n\nthe month old smoke stench, dead skin,\nand your only friend burned to ashes.\n\nWho will you call now when the visions\nkick in, when the film ends and the hotel\u2014\n\nvacant, the front desk receptionist has left. \nPut simply, your friend ended one pain\n\nin the name of another. In a dirt lot\ntwo men fought behind a funeral parlor,\n\none for attention, the other for honor.\nYou were as high as you\u2019ve ever been,\n\nwasting time. You thought if the future is \nthe entire sum of the past and present,\n\nyou count it vanishing in smoke rings.\nAnd if a man stands at a balcony\u2019s edge\n\nas his hands sweat, nothing will happen. \nYour blue haired lover stands confident,\n\nthe white dress in a circle around her feet,\nbegging you to grow wings as she speaks.\n\nIn bed her legs shake uncontrollably.\nAnd later, she showers as you sit\n\nsmoking a cigarette, as you dream of \na future not too far off when at last\n\nyou\u2019ll come to take your solitude back.\nTowel around her chest, your shirt ripped,\n\nwho said it\u2019s too late for second chances?\nRevealing less than a nakedness, she dances\n\nlike a dancer, she gazes but never blinks.\nGorgeous, you think, her hair longer\n\nthan yours, and wet, two earrings glinting\nin half light almost brighter than pearls\u2014\n\nlife would be a lie if not for desire. \nIf not for desire, your dead friend \n\nmight still be alive and the new lover\nyou met at his funeral, a stranger. \n\n\u201cIsn\u2019t the morning dew beautiful?\u201d\nshe asks, as your fists grip the railing\n\nand you stare out to the horizon, frozen\nin pink, as the fresh world thaws and spins\n\nand your breath vanishes, as the melted snow\nstrums the gutter, and your head rings. <\/pre>\n\n\n\n
<\/div>\n\n\n\n
Max Lasky<\/strong>‘s poems are published or forthcoming in American Poetry Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, Frontier Poetry, the Academy of American Poets Ana\u00efs Nin Poetry Prize, The Indianapolis Review, and elsewhere. He is the co-founder and editor-in-chief of Leavings (https:\/\/www.leavingslitmag.com), and he is an assistant poetry editor for Narrative Magazine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
So once again you begin here at the beginning, near the end, as the human language you lost you now regain. In the doorway a woman loitered, imagined or real, it doesn\u2019t matter. She wore a name like a white dress and smiled slightly, as if to offer you advice, if only you knew then … <\/p>\n
Continue reading ““Aubade from a Balcony in Winter,\u00a0After Watching La Notte” by Max Lasky”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2310,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2976","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/oxmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2976","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/oxmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/oxmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/oxmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2310"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/oxmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2976"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/oxmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2976\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/oxmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}