Mad River by Justin Bigos (poetry ’08)

An excerpt from Mad River by Justin Bigos (poetry, ’08), available now from Gold Wake Press:

Portrait of My Father as John Clare: “Common Loon’s Nest”

I think of ma stretched out like death
in Room 42 of the Pequot Motel,
the television static rain,
not snow, as they say, the whole room soaked
through like a rag before it’s squeezed.
I’d left the faucet on, indeed, a quick shave
before work, my twelve-hour shift
driving a cab – then coming home after fries
and a Double Whopper with cheese
in a parking lot lit up like some firefly
graveyard, wing dust on my windshield,
stardust in my head. And that’s what they called it,
trying to be kind, perhaps, doctors
and nurses, not in white suits but suits with neckties,
flowered dresses and scarves of gold.
Stardust – as if I were Brando
or Paul Newman rocking away his last days
at the Connecticut General Hospital
for the Insane. Yes, quite a name
for a place serving pot roast with plastic knives,
pressing hot towels to faces
of tenants not allowed to shave themselves. Ma
told me to not forget her soup
and crackers, Meals on Wheels had lately been stale
as my jokes. I wiped the bloody
foam from my face, made sure the TV was set
to channel 9, PBS, left
without saying goodbye. As I did tonight,
though we have no TVs, only
the large one like some aquarium lighting
up the lounge. The other men stare
and moan night and day as if it’s God Himself,
as if God played golf, or dropped bombs
on hospitals in ancient lands
still here, its people wailing for their newborn
dead, a sound I carry with me
everywhere, even here, this pond I’ve named
Hidden Loon Pond, whether it’s my right to name
God’s pond or not. I am Adam
as much as Eve, though, it took me my whole life
to figure that one out. Listen:
the loon, what’s called the common loon, yodeling
across the pond. They make their nests
with marsh grass and sedge, in the coves
and dark bays of the pond, if it’s big enough.
I once saw a loon in the lot
of Circuit City after a heavy storm.
It must have mistaken the slick
asphalt for pond, the neon glare for moonlight.
It took nearly twenty minutes
to find enough runway, like a propeller
plane before, finally, it levels
its wings and lifts from the ground. The common loon
is named for its hobble, from the Swedish word
for lame. I myself can barely
walk a mile and, worse, tonight when I escaped
that prison I forgot my shoes.
Yes, prison, that’s what I called it, the first room
I could have stayed in forever,
no rent, no hollering ma, and as much food
as an idle man can eat. Now
look at me: sitting barefoot by the cattails
of this marshy pond, listening
for the common loon, hiding, which is the sane
thing to do in this whirlipuff
of a world. Some of us, like the brown mallard,
can only fly against the wind.
Most of us can’t fly at all, and so we turn
away, pray for a mighty gust.

BIO: Justin Bigos is author of the poetry collection Mad River (Gold Wake, 2017), as well as the chapbook Twenty Thousand Pigeons (iO, 2014). His writing appears or is forthcoming in publications including New England Review, The Seattle Review, Ploughshares, Indiana Review, McSweeney’s Quarterly, The Best American Short Stories 2015, and The Rumpus. He coedits the literary magazine Waxwing and lives in Flagstaff, Arizona, where he teaches writing at Northern Arizona University.