I had always wanted to know if toeing the line between
old and young was as fascinating as it seemed.
So, after many years of walking, I found the line
only to realize that there was no time
to stop and look around.
I suppose that’s why it’s fascinating:
no one gets to do it.
A full conspirator,
a well know narrator,
the single variable that you can change.
A dark and muggy eve,
a secret hidden up your sleeve,
oh why have you led each of us astray
in your game
of keep-away?
The wind of twine upon the shelf,
a lone, sweet child cries out for help,
an empty bottle lies broken on the floor.
The biting cold that left real scars,
our whole, united family up in arms,
oh why have you led each of us astray
in your game
of keep-away?
A wasp among bees
long hair and too-short sleeves
goddamn feminine woes
maledict hands and venerate toes
When I was young, I used to think that there was a giant room where all of the items I would ever consume in my lifetime were kept. As I digested each item, it would disappear from the room. I never did conceive where this room was kept; maybe somewhere in my subconsciousness. But I always wanted to go in and look around, because then I would know how long I had to live, if I had good taste, or if I cared enough about my body to feed it at all.
When I was young, I had an imaginary friend. Her name was Janine. She used to cut my hair. Not in huge chunks, just a little of the ends on each side. She said that it would remind me how easy it was to remove little bits of someone without anyone noticing for awhile, but that one day it would be a nice surprise to see how much that person has changed. That was how I grew, she said. In tiny bits and pieces. Just a little on each side.
When I was young, I tried to live in a cherry blossom tree. It was August of 1999, and I didn’t want to start kindergarten. I didn’t want to go to Lisa’s house every day after school. Lisa was angry. Lisa’s children were angry. Lisa’s dog was dead. The cherry blossom tree proved to be perfect for my needs. I was hidden from sight by several thick layers of leaves and surrounding me were countless, intertwining branches to hold my five-year-old aloft. Around two o’clock, my mother gave me a sandwich. She asked why I was in a tree. I told her how Lisa was angry, Lisa’s children were angry, and that Lisa’s dog was dead. We never went back. I think the police did.
When I was young, I learned many things. I learned to fear the sound of broken glass and the doorbell. I learned to save brothers and give sisters a wide berth. I learned to hate hands; at least my own. I learned that owning a watch meant that you were burdened with not hours, but minutes and seconds. The weight of moments and silences with the tick of a hand, hands, more than several than millions of thousands of none or one or five or half past the hour or moments or moments or moments or now.
After you’ve been to bed together for the first time,
without the advantage or disadvantage of any prior acquaintance,
the other party very often says to you,
Tell me about yourself, I want to know all about you,
what’s your story? And you think maybe they really and…
at home making lists
with stolen keys that no one is missing
putting down the logic, fact-based prose
and con-men keeping heart-knockers
working on the door
so that we grease the hinges often, polish the brass,
and wait for company… pleasant company
tea with sugar, cheese and wine, ultra divine company
at a shoes-sit-at-the-mat kind of place
where the drapes and the carpet and her eyebrows are starched
crisp and clean as a dime from this decade
Known down to the day, how strange
poor young ladies
wander the concrete and stones, get pushed down by
that clumsy son-of-a-gun who jumped in the ocean,
swims back just to brush off sand from dress pants.
Oh kids these days, with their
Xanax, long fingernails,
five-dollar swoon, nine-cent chew,
and those gorgeous, gorgeous hands.
Why, the turnabout makes a difference
between running towards daylight & begging for rain
Everything lost in the coruscate left long ago,
back to where your father feeds the ovens coal
within the confinements of the 26th
you laid, eternally blissful, surrounded by holes
in plaster and the dollar under the mattress
someone’s permanent investment
and who would abandon a bull like that
take swearing as a sign of nerves
shrill bouts of throe swimming in
xiphoid crown rang down to the clapper
sway like muted grace against chagrin
post with pin in deep set to spine like so much
fragments of tissue and waterlogged down
deep set into the pages spattered, bruised stain
fade the moss back in molding, take shape within the wall
hugs the frienze, set far back deep into the closet
leagues beneath ground swell or corkscrew
drunk off our alkaline memories
note the time, log, cryptanalysis
remorse from Morse’s cipher in the taillights
set deep on an atramentous line
lazy air from your side of the aisle
steal stale tales from the dusty shelves and
sink into the crevices of brain and ear lobes
bold-font in thought like
sternly given rhetoric for the broken vase
springs twirled, legs curled, no more boy and girl
only man and man and man and man and
paid escorts in tennis courts
light up behind the unused swimming pool
change the grey-scale back to zero
he’d only be too glad to walk you home
