R. Nikolas Macioci

How to capture childhood in a poem?

Here’s a poem by R. Nikolas Macioci (born 1965?) who won a number of poetry competitions, including the 1987 National Writers’ Union Poetry Competition judged by Denise Levertov. His publication credits include four books of poetry and he has appeared in more than 200 magazines

Early Evidence of Wonderland

On the day my mother cleaned mirrors
I would dangle upside down from the sofa,
watching her place their scalloped edges
end to end on the carpet like sections of light.
On knees, I peered at reversed landscape,
fascinated with wrong reality:
a ceiling trimmed with baseboard, door frames
a foot from the floor, a waist-high chandelier
atop a chain stiff as a shellacked snake.
Half the day I stayed on my knees, contemplating
how I might enter glass, convinced
if I stared long enough, I could
step past silver resistance. On those afternoons,
I ignored logic and entered the riddle.
By lifting nine-year old legs over the edge
into an opposite room, I vanished
from my mother’s voice, asking me to help
replace furniture and re-hand mirrors,
still full of my resolve to disappear
beyond reflection.

--R. Nikolas Macioci