Cure Begets Ailment

The well is dry.
The well is dry,
the well is dry!

They are all slowly
dying of thirst.
Look at them
their chapped lips
Oh!
Their cracked skin
what brittle bones
and shrinking stature.

And a mother’s heart hurts
when there is no bathwater
only soap rings of bygone duty,
the sparse and salty tears
of her child, coated in dust,
glowing in the sun.

She recalls,
as dirt devils spin in an awkward
updraft in the yard,
when she was young and soft
standing in the ocean;
useless goddamn diamonds.

Survivor’s Guilt

It wasn’t a Holocaust
it wasn’t a war
it wasn’t anything natural
no whirling vortices
no eyes of storms
no surge
no frogs falling from the sky
just fire
all concievable fires:
gunpowder, kerosene, biblical,
full books of matches struck against gasoline
and a trigger finger
had been itching and itching for years

since all that
crumbling infastructure and
twisting metal and
bulging plastic and
projectile friends

and when I arrived on the scene
you were merely holographically there
more visible less physical
and I left gifts piled outside your door
in the snow
all Christmasses
suppose they burned, melted, exasperated
with your Bad Company records and
bath towels and
bed sheets

and you, all Daedelus nerve and Dido tear,
called my mother drunk and tortured at night
over a seven year old word I had said, taking
your grape Bubblicious without asking and my
maudlin survivors guilt began

and now it’s funny
the parallel lines of you being death and me being life
because eight months of the year
you paid your bills and mowed your lawn and wooed women
and eight times out of ten
I get out of bed on time and drive between the lines and eat in plenty

so what then when
I tired to lick your fire
swerved, drew blood, banged wrists
were you ashamed at the end of each episode
when I had been extinguished rather than
swaddled under a blanket of flame?

Decades of lines like anchors.
My father identified you
point blank gunshot face and ashen core
so we can’t exactly say your name anymore.

Take Pictures, Smile, and be a Good Girl

So try not to embarrass your mother.
Because you can’t weather the weather without your prescriptions
And you can’t drive without getting arrested
And you can’t sleep at night
And you can’t eat when you’re awake
And you can’t get wet for your man.
So, if nothing else,
Style your hair.
Put makeup on your face
Wear that cardigan that your mother absolutely loves
Hide all the ugliness that keeps seeping out like a puss filled wound
Go to your cousin’s wedding
And try not to embarrass your mother.

A Topographic Map of Grief

I was wearing this very sweater
at Danica’s wedding and Stephanie
was her maid of honor and she looked
so lovely in blue and I was only just
starting to get close to her and she was so
much more fascinating than me and
that made me jealous so I loved her but
it was tainted by envy and I wish now that
I hadn’t been so stupid and insecure and I wish
I could have just enjoyed her.

And I’m just wondering if
maybe
if we sometimes know that a bad thing is going
to happen before it happens.
Like maybe she woke up that day feeling
strange and just brushed it off because
some days are just strange but then that nagging
sensation of something vague and terrible
found its way back to her and followed her
all fucking day, giving her pause before
leaving the house but not enough
of a pause to keep her
alive.

I just wonder if she felt it first
that maybe I’d have to meet her dad
at her funeral, that inside her casket she
wouldn’t look like her and all these strangers
would be crying and they’d be strangers even if I knew
them because I had never known them
like that.
I doubt she’d have wanted me to meet her dad
that day, to see his face hard and deeply wrinkled
a topographic map of grief
once I had compiled all the information I’d
gathered about her tragic life.
She maybe would have apologized
that her dad cried when he shook my hand
and all I could do was stare at the pack of
red PallMall’s in his shirt pocket.

Dormitory

Those vile sluts
Howling long into the
Depth of night
Settling only to rise once more
Far past noon
To station themselves on the
Elizabeth R. Knight Lawson Hall patio,
Light a cigarette,
Finger chunks of smudged
Black eyeliner from the
Inside corners of their eyes
And belatedly brag on the conquests
Of the previous evening:
Pissing in unison on the seats of
Every public toilet,
Fucking in unison
Every member of this or that
Sports team or fraternity
Waiting in unison for the phone calls
Promised after the glorious
Three A.M. gang bang.

I Want, I Want

I want to be a Genius.
Brilliant, not so hushedly whispered about
As my partner and I take our seats
In a lecture hall or opera house.
“That’s her! It’s her,
The woman who forever
Changed the way we all think about:
The curious post-mortem activities of fingernails
And hair follicles,
The journey of the Mayflower,
The possibilities of what can be shaped out of
Softened candle wax
Ever since she wrote that poem about those things.
Only poem I ever liked.
Man, is she Brilliant!”
They’d say.

I want to be Beautiful.
Even on my most shipwrecked days
My face and the peculiar angles of my body
Would appear before men as the
Primary sketches of the Mona Lisa
Already so tasteful and mysterious
They would know without doubt that after a few
Very minor brushstrokes
Perfection would be mine to achieve
And the whistles they’d issue as I passed could be
Translated into:
“I’ve seen sunsets and sunrises, but never both at once
At the same moment in the same sky until this very one.
A body of pristine nature! I am moved to tears”

I want to be a Saint
A healer of those with woes
My shawled head printed on foreign money
Hedgerows and wooden benches in parks
Dedicated to the memory of my great humanitarian works
And out there in the cosmos, a leg of Orion renamed
My name
And the gentle people now with such soothed souls
Might say,
After catching a fragment of my interview with Oprah:
“That woman is a dove.
Why, just last May she fed my children,
Swept my floor, loved my husband,
And helped me beat the IRS!”

And I want, I want!
To no longer be
The image blurred in an otherwise perfect photograph
The unseen cause of late night house sounds
The misunderstood flickering of lights
The murmured disembodied voice of lowly spectral existence
The unquestioned cause of your goose bumps and raised neck hair
I want your eyes on me,
I want your eyes on me to recognize what they see.

In the study of literature, we are asked to please consider the relationship between what is written and what isn’t written.
We are asked to consider, please, what the author tells us and what the author doesn’t tell us.
We are asked to consider what is important to us but isn’t important to everyone else, please.
And in the fields of dental work, masonry, and crime scene investigation, we are asked to fill in the gaping spaces that are otherwise seldom noticed.

We Never talk like this

It’s nearly one am
the bars will close soon
and the patrons of the bars
will slip home and sleep hard

I’m up but not out
I’m worried about you
and the details of the
repercussions you suffer.

Thumb Tacks

Eating dinner

Spitting out some words

Hot shower

Thumb tacks

In which drawer did I place those good ideas?

Brushing teeth

Watch a movie by myself

Is all I have hope for

Dull among all the others

The winter air is sharp on my foreign tongue

Omens For Company

Darling,

I’ve developed habits;

Bad ones.

Walking under ladders

Spilling salt

Opening umbrellas indoors

But, if you’re out there,

If you exist,

I won’t.

I’ll quit.

I’ll never break another mirror

Again.

 

If you’re waiting

Somewhere

For me,

I’ll reform.

 

I’ll break wishbones

Carry acorns

Touch blue

If it brings me to you.

I’ll plant rosemary by the door,

And hang a horseshoe

By the bed

And I’ll wait

I’ll wait I’ll wait

 

Until I hear the

Crickets in the house

And know that you’ve

Come home.