Brian Trimboli: Four Elegies with Florencia

Brian Trimboli

Four Elegies with Florencia

The christmas tree as an orphaned animal.
It remains for much longer than a year,
and it's burned rather than moved.

The clouds never did go away, either.
Every few years their sound grew
like some precious jewel from my chest:

amethyst, topaz, sapphire ribs,
a cage of luminescence.

I imagine it looked like I was carved from the sun.

Nothing is ever buried for the last time.
As I have come to understand, this universe recycles.

I have read that matter is not created
or destroyed. It sits along the outer edge
of a cold and dusty galaxy

waiting for the incredible luck of being.

I believe it was knowledge that skips a generation.

My father’s father worked on the moon landing
and almost played professional ball

or so I’m told. He is a good man, regardless
and I try to have dinner with him every few
months. But yes, I am sure of it now,
it is knowledge.

Do you remember how we met?
If I remember correctly,
we were two parallel lines.
Oh? We still are? Very well.

And you are worried they will find us
the same as our fathers; it is now

I am filled with dahlias. The earth, Florencia,
becomes beautiful with those whom we bury.

I followed the rattle to an island
where all the world’s wind met.
It was winter there also.

Too cold to swim back, I sewed
a parachute from the deciduous branches
of a powder frosted forest.

The blocks of frozen land
like ice cubes in a glass of water.
Unfortunately, the wind always

dropped me off in the same spot.
The edges of the beach then seeming
to stretch past the horizon.

I was the last of our kind to realize
I had always been hungry.

Forever approaching,
but never arriving.

Brian Trimboli is taking his MFA at New York University. He is a past fellow at the Bucknell Seminar for Younger Poets and recepient of the George R. Dunham Poetry Prize. He has poems published and forthcoming in Natural Bridge, Puerto del Sol, RATTLE, and The Pebble Lake Review. contact