Poetry By Roxanne Noor

Will Fisher CC




The Language of Downhill

I said “Oh, well”
meaning “what now?”

What now, after the fabulous melodrama
that ascended to the gates of light,
plummets downhill to the underworld of onyx?
Our animal hearts pumping with vigor, 
eventually turn still and stony. 

Much easier to say “Oh, well” 
than “I’m sorry I don’t know what to do.”
I don’t know how to ease the space between us. 
I don’t know how to hold my body straight.
I don’t how to use my mouth to form words. 
 
We had the simple language of what we consumed,
pacified by downers that shrank language 
to brief flickers of eye contact
and melodious grunts.

If we could strip language clean,
it would be just this: sound.
Sound with no inherent meaning.
“Oh” — an exhalation of warm breath.
“Well”— not meaning good,
nor the brick shaft you drop a coin down and make a wish.
One syllable, a rounded shape lips tighten into. 

“Oh, well” would reduce itself as we reduced ourselves--
forgot ourselves.
Abandoned our muddled histories and
shed our old skin like fed up snakes.

“Oh, well” could be a glance to the floor and a shrug.
“I’m sorry” would translate to a chest-to-chest hug.

But we did not shrug our narrow shoulders
or hug to conjure intimacy from whatever
little was left between us.
Instead, we sat and stared at the wall,
summoning the right words
when we were not in the right place.

Rightness refused to appear through 
the slim crack in the door, 
the fist sized hole in the wall, or 
the gap in the window.

There would be no divine intervention.
No sermon from any preacher.
No “first came the word.”
No word at all.
Just the indifferent buzz of New York;
the fizzy laughter of a couple outside the bodega,
the sharp bark of an agitated dog,
and the impatience of blaring horns.

But then you run your hand through your mossy hair, 
& in this one loose gesture 
I know you’re saying, “No worries.”
And for a moment, I have enough faith to believe you. 

​


Roxanne Noor is a writer and editor living on a small island in Thailand. She is the founder of Nude Studio, a magazine exploring physical and metaphysical nudity in an age of maximalism and excess. Her work has been published in Mixed Mag, Sunstroke Magazine, Nymphs, Uplift Connect, and Full Potential.


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