Let Me Say It Anyway
1.
Morning,
and the music with the TV on.
Such a bundle of cords.
Such a protest.
A chorus of chainsaws
eating up the small branches
on Minhinette.
A little further north, on Rucker,
big trucks hauling off
the downed limbs,
the cut-up trunks.
It’s been a monumental clean-up;
they’re still salvaging.
I wake you up and tell you,
It was something powerful
pulling us.
2.
The child has a hurt thumb,
from sucking.
We keep telling him
you have to stop or it won’t
heal.
You have to put it away–
no guns, no wires, no sticks.
They are not good for you.
And he gets it;
he puts them away.
But as soon as we turn around
the thumb goes back in.
I say does your skin itch?
I’ve given you this, I know it.
3.
Susan,
you wouldn’t like to sleep here.
You can’t put my spirit
by me and simply leave.
My spirit has been torn.
Now I understand.
I say nothing.
It’s (almost) better.
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
instead of this
oh i want to scream to you
about my house
it’s such a sudden, good house
you would do well to go
inside
things are solidifying
the cinderblock loves you
the sink and the cabinets love you
i love you
pale gum
blue paste
bitter blister
teach me your scrambled eggs
but maybe i hate you
left of the real, up and over
Prospect Street
my house stretches
from Minhinette to Strickland
Woodstock to Hwy 9
it grows bigger and bigger
more airy
meanwhile you’re not even ‘good’
i am disgusted
with your peppermint
you let your candy
fall
down in the valley
in the yard
with the bugs,
the whole works