Another Making

by Scott Owens

Tell me what you remember.
Nothing.
What did you feel?
Nothing.
C'mon, what did you feel?
Nothing, I said.
Nervous?
Perfectly normal.
Fear?
There's no right answer.
They picked on me.
Why?
My flesh was swollen.
I was too old. I was out of touch.
They said I was too demanding.
They wanted someone more like them.
Who were they?
My father, my wife, my landlord,
my boss, a stalker, a voyeur.
Why were they there?
They've always been there.
And then?
A lot of axes.
The sounds of breaking.
I was bigger than them.
They ran from me.
And then?
Nothing. They were all gone.
Silence.
Nothing?
Darkness.
Is that it?
I started over.
I made some light.
I made some shapes
for the light to touch.
The shapes made shadows.
Where the light touched them
the shapes made colors,
each color a little different from the next,
some colors even I couldn't see.
What else?
Cold air.
Snow and ice.
Storms.
Rivers and streams.
Water flowing downhill,
a waterfall.
Animals and trees.
Some animals that eat the trees,
some that eat themselves.
A bird or two,
one that rises
from its own ashes.
Iron and steel.
And then?
Things that moved on their own.
Things that made sounds at each other.
I thought it would be nice to have people.
Like who?
My father, my wife, a voyeur.

Author of 6 collections of poetry and over 700 poems published in journals and anthologies, Scott Owens is editor of Wild Goose Poetry Review, Vice President of the Poetry Council of North Carolina, and recipient of awards from the Pushcart Prize Anthology, the Academy of American Poets, the NC Writers’ Network, the NC Poetry Society, and the Poetry Society of SC. He holds an MFA from UNC Greensboro and currently teaches at Catawba Valley Community College.