Two Poems By Albert Abonado
by Mark Bibbins, Editor
This book is set in a type that has planted eggs in other books and then moved on. This is considered bad parenting in some circles, to drop trou and move on, to not offer any financial support, but that is how things are done around here, how one builds character. One egg will eventually become a famous musician; another will be able to accurately predict weather patterns. Occasionally, an egg can only get as far as middle-management, but that’s okay. Everyone has a role to play. Not every type is born with the finesse to unite disparate texts or fill a manifesto with its own body. Not every type will be complimented for its economy, its spare lines or carried under the arms of adolescents, read in bathrooms to alleviate stress. Not every type will sleep tucked between someone’s legs, which turns out to be an excellent way to align the spine.
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This book is set in a type found in the margins of another book. It is often used to remember state capitals and the Beatitudes, to write essays on Alexander Hamilton. This type is very good with memory. It will make you better at names. You will no longer forget the birthdays of your relatives with this type. You will even remember the taste of food from someone else’s mouth.
During the Industrial Age, this was also known as the Elephant type. As you read this type, you remember your own sadness can be the size of an elephant. The elephant of your sadness rests beneath a canopy of baobabs remembering its own sadnesses as your friends drift out of you. You remember how you were once a cave where people drew small horned animals on the walls of your body. You remember the sound of their little black shoes as they stepped out.
Albert Abonado lives with his wife in Rochester, NY where he works for BOA Editions. He holds an MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars and has been nominated for a Pushcart prize. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Collagist, Gargoyle, Guernica, Inertia, New Ohio Review, No Tell Motel, and Washington Square.
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