Five Days After the Blast
At least my language matters.
Learn Spanish.
In Walgreens
there is a like a small fortune
of the loose ends
of the world’s detritus
on sale.
I love it.
There are umbrellas.
There are walking sticks.
There are gauze and tinned meat.
There are saltines
and about a million magazines to read.
In Spanish
there is leche
there is agua
(la leche, el agua)
There is a TV stuck on channel 27…
on fuzz.
I’m excited.
I’ve taken some drugs from the pharmacy
and I’m going to wait for you
under the angled mirror
over by the hairbrushes.
Learn Italian.
When you get here
I want you to take my picture.
I want you to snap me up
with one of those disposable cameras
on aisle 11.
And then say bene, molto bene, muy bien.
There’s been no mistake.
Avalanche
as many windows. A room then, a bedroom, a closet, a claw-footed tub. A
shower curtain I can hold you down to. Finally, some presence.
What word can I put in your mouth? What vision? There are soap-slivers
in a jar in the bathroom. There are razors by the claw-footed tub. Behind
the medicine cabinet there is the tiniest of nails…
in the tiniest of holes.
And yet there is no culmination of vision. Vision is misguided; it’s not
even the right sense. In the wallspace, the seals come apart. The wind
whips. Or it rips. We take off our clothes…
ripping
more ripping
I want you to come
I want to come
I want your come
I want you to come
inside me
in your mouth
more and more ripping, more
back on our heels
and rocking
not fighting