Two From Daniel Felsenthal, “Out of Time/Admiration” and “The Beach is a Terminal You Leave When You Die”
Art by Andy Mister
by Daniel Felsenthal
Out of Time/Admiration
The toughest subject
to write on is time
Everyday I’m trying
I just run bone dry
Ba-dum where’s
That hi-hat?
A Hoover flag
Waves bare
In the pocket
Cue drums
For the meantime—
That soft word
For nervous hours
Put to pasture
We learn methods
To enjoy these
Summer strolls as
Cretinous wild
Childs starry and
Scotch-drunk.
People of leisure
At pastoral
Estates that drab
Men auction
Off, but, wait—
Oh golly gee
A boozy brunch:
Hey wasn’t a
Mirror just there?
Buried in pollen,
Swollen ticks
Poetry suggests
Sipping days
Slow as black tea
By your twelfth
Sunburn you may
Learn rare arts:
Generosity, ease
That month we waited
For the doc’s scan
Bruised up my insides
Life squeezed shut
Youth and middle age
I grew too quickly
For summer’s languor
You glowed with
Hope in death’s shade
Lauding weather
Facing such gleaming
Skies to uncover.
*
The Beach is a Terminal You Leave When You Die
You waited there and you missed me.
It was the first time you had wished
I was single. I go to the beach everyday
And try to smell your skin in the sand.
You were married, and your husband
Died, and I am married, and I grieve
For everyone. I have made up these
Memories of one fine summer day
You and I drove to the water’s edge:
How you spoke to horseshoe crabs
Like they would crawl out of their
Visigoth armor. And work made my
Face into a stern and heavy mask
Because this is how I waste my time.
I once wrote of the sand and waves:
“A terminal you leave when you die.”
For our friends, such sorrow was
Just scuffing on the walls of glee,
Which still bore joy’s heavy load.
Romance can sleep two easily.
Rip out standard compartments
And the far wall is a horizon line.
If you desire, there’s even room
For a triangle—we told ourselves.
Sex was the lone real thing we had
To feel like we had more than life.
Decades of sea breeze oxidize our
Steeltrap minds: Distance is a cure only
For kids and old folks. I’ll reach you
But between shore and your side of the
Triangle is nautical miles of decline. And my
Car’s parked in the spoiled past where
I am still having a lot of fun.
Daniel Felsenthal is a fiction writer, critic, essayist and poet. His
essays and reviews have appeared or are forthcoming in The New Yorker,
The Guardian, The Nation, The New Republic, The Atlantic, the Village
Voice, Pitchfork and the Los Angeles Times, among many other
publications. He is at work on a novel, an essay collection and helps
fight for better pay and working conditions for writers with the
Freelance Solidarity Project. He will be an Adjunct Assistant Professor
in the Creative Writing Program at Columbia University in 2025, teaching
undergraduates, and he also DJs with the experimental duo 3 People.
