The Problem

The Problem

Aaron Belz

When I was young my brain was delicate
as the spritzed orchid among ice chips. 

At 50 my brain has become a wheel
of eyes gazing in various directions. 

This is an old, old image for God himself,
but when it comes to a man’s brain—

maybe it’s more like a Rube Goldberg 
Rorschach blot Venn diagram tariff stamp

type of thing. It feels like risen dough
under a neat square of kitchen linen

in a house that has no people in it
and never will. People won’t go there.

It tastes the way winter rain in Irkutsk 
legendarily tastes as it collects in slushy

rivulets along sparkling gray sidewalks
leading to the asylum and leading

to the work prison, also leading to 
the black bread bakery open only two

days a week these days, and on those 
days the lines are so long no one goes

anymore. Leading to the Venus statue
in the town square. Venus on a war horse.

Venus holding a rolled-up map.
Venus raising her sword aloft as if to say

“Come back to your youth and love me
with that brain you compare to dough,

for I will bake it in my mythic heat,
and all the Roman sages and your 

high school friends will show up one
by one and sit down and prepare to eat.” 

When I was young my brain was a clean web,
a neural ballet, a trim singer-songwriter 

barefoot in new jeans and a linen shirt.
Now it is soaked beets, leftover borscht.

---

Aaron Belz
God-Fearing Roustabout

Aaron holds an MFA in Creative Writing from NYU and a Ph.D. in American Literature from Saint Louis U. He has published four full-length collections of poetry, most recently Soft Launch (Persea, 2019). He is online at belz.net and on Twitter at @belzpoems.

Photography by Alina Chernii