Here & There

Will Frazier

I can count the times it happened on one hand.

All before I was eleven or twelve.

We’d be sitting at the dinner table.

My father would be speaking.

When I looked at him, a voice in my head said

This is your dad, he is speaking, you are on earth, this is your life

& when my mother spoke & I turned to her, the same.

Just before it began, the voice hurtled me

into space. As it spoke I traveled back to the table

in slow motion at the speed of light—

like the moment you swear you’ve stopped

moving in an elevator or on a plane save for

that little buoyant pocket in your core. Terror

& wonder in equal proportions canceled me,

a witness with no plot. Until the voice—faster,

repeating, sounding more like mine—signaled

return. The last time it happened, I wanted

to delay my arrival & somehow I could.

For seconds I hovered above my checkered seat,

my parents’ words sharpening those charred beams

along the load-bearing wall.

Will Frazier is a poet from Virginia. He lives in Brooklyn, NY.
Originally published:
September 1, 2020

Featured

Cancel Culture and Other Myths

Anti-fandom as heartbreak
Kathryn Lofton

Ode to Babel

The ecstasy of Michael K. Williams
Roger Reeves

A Moral Education

In praise of filth
Garth Greenwell

You Might Also Like


Lovecraft and Me

How cosmic horror gave me hope
Kieran Setiya

Blanca

Jared Jackson

Subscribe

New perspectives, enduring writing. Join a conversation 200 years in the making. Subscribe to our print journal and receive four beautiful issues per year.
Subscribe