The Dull Mad Fact And what a divine relief it was when, with a tiny instrument resembling an elf's drumstick, the tender doctor removed from my eyeball the offending black atom! I wonder where that speck is now? The dull, mad fact is that it does exist somewhere. —Vladimir Nabokov The dull mad fact: it does exist somewhere: the speck of soot in young Nabokov’s eye: a billion-year-old ash of solar flare. Somewhere a tortured cat screams out its terror, unable to escape or to know why: this dull mad fact: it does exist somewhere. Somewhere my father stands and grabs for air, although his heart has beat its last goodbye to billion-year-old spark of solar flare. My brother lifeless in intensive care, his lungs raped by a ventilator; my dull maddening fact: it does exist somewhere. My grandma fallen, helpless on the glare of open radiator, heated by the billion-year-old ash of solar flare. Go where you will; say that you cannot bear to think of it; say that you’d rather die. The dull mad fact: it does exist somewhere, lit by some distant planet’s solar flare.
—Submitted on 09/25/2022
Cheryl Caesar is the author of Flatman (independently published, 2020). Cheryl teaches writing at Michigan State University, serves on the board of the Lansing Poetry Club and the Michigan College English Association, and enjoys sketching in charcoal and painting in watercolors.
Editor’s Note: The series title Flush Left revers to the fact that, due to our limited WordPress skills, we are only considering poems that are flush left.