Esteban Ismael
Portrait of Atlas (2000 & Beyond)
This century’s last August sun boils
the sky an unbearable white
while a sofa sits on the back of our necks
as we struggle down stairs, our grip
on slipping cushions that teeter like oblong planets,
our heads trying to keep this sea-blue
world steady, these soft places that know
the weight of our bodies, the cosmos,
burdens we hold with our unsteady hands,
shoulders shrugged, Atlas too. Everyone
knows his story & wishes they could help
him, but only his brothers are here with me
to drag everything left in their known world
into the u-haul. When we hit the bottom floor,
being first, gravity falls directly on him—
his white tee can’t hide the sweat this life takes
from us before we can even become men,
back twitching against a hard frame that rests
on our shoulders curling like fists ready to go
flat. The blue couch is a world map
showing minutes his dad spent
within these stuffy walls or countless hours
away left for Atlas to hoist the house
on his shoulders & keep it from falling,
keep the ball rolling a boulder
on his back & ours too while time spins
like the globe we broke off its hinges
on the last day of fourth grade, eager to kick
the damn thing across the field, hurl
at each others’ faces the way older brothers can
even use a pillow to teach what power means,
bust the lip open with one half-assed swing
long after the TV finished wailing
laughter before his grandmother stopped knitting
by the door when the trouble of being too old
& too tired to bother crossing
the long lines becoming as fixed
as the ones drawn in a state’s map.
We croon rap choruses & push
the last of everything into the truck,
praying to find anything that could buy us
out from under this shifting world we are beginning
to feel curve our spines—a lost watch
in the gutter we can pawn, a loose twenty
on the floor of the liquor store, a bundle
of copper dropped by a passing truck;
fuck, even the sticky quarters
stuck under coke machines would do
for scratchers or sweet gold brews
with names we can’t pronounce,
any alms that could slow this sinking
feeling, the weight growing heavier
over our heads as this damn world keeps
spinning, our knees bent & backs arched,
hands holding empty cans.