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.