Tarame Chronicles

Tarame Chronicles

(i) Tarame (mere mortal)

Tarame was by all acounts a mere mortal
no faerie or shapeshifter or vampire or god

no urge to throw on a cape and cowl
and toss himself around like Batman

instead he carved beneath a magnifying glass
tiny sculptures of frail people from matchsticks

and set them afoot in gardens he tended himself
along the window sills of the house where he lived

so between him and the world (and possible Naraka)
grew garden parties where his creation watched the sea

and counted the days by sunrise sunset and the tide
because mere mortals need make believe to believe

(ii) relief (naming)

Tarame was greatly relieved
to learn that the storm
sweeping his home
his family
and his possessions

out to sea

was not a hurricane
but a post-tropical cyclone

that made all the difference

(iii) Tarame never had a daughter (Anomaly)


Tarame never had a daughter
who loved him
with understanding.

But he could sit on the beach
watching the ocean
and imagine her:

She was named Anomaly
and she was unlike anybody
like him unlike anybody.

There in common
their uncommon
they recognized.

Tarame never had a daughter
who loved him
with understanding.

But he could sit on the beach
watching the ocean
and imagine her understanding.

(iv) Anomaly (imagined child)
  
Anomaly as his imagined child
allowed Tarame hours sitting in the sun
watching and listening to the ceaseless tide

contemplating this young woman of him
and all that was female for him in this world
as he faced his life completely solitary.

Tarame knew he had accomplished
one real and clear thing in his half century—
failing women who had claimed his heart,

but what was a man to do with failure
and a heart gripped tight by squandered love lost
while the ocean sang and the sun always shined?


Alone Tarame could imagine a daughter
unlike him and unlike anyone else,

but he could not even fathom a lover,
his soulmate sitting there beside him.

In the space of his imagination was nothing
except the hollowness he knew as longing

and the animated voice and laughter
he believed rose from Anomaly’s throat.

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