--IF
YOU’RE STILL BREATHING YOU’RE ONE OF THE LUCKY ONES
…Yesterday
was a good day.
Out
of the blue, I got a note that someone wanted to publish one of my stories in a
college textbook coming out from Columbia Press. I even get paid $150, which is big money for
a writer these days.
Then
I sent in the nine poems below and all of them got accepted.
Yay.
…I’ll
be gone again this weekend, staying with friends at a very cool place called
Indianola.
I
hope you have the best weekend ever.
Try
Again
My
daughter is looking for answers in
a
glass ball of black ink.
For Sure.
Someday.
Maybe.
Definitely.
Try Again.
I
say, “Everybody’s good at something.
What
are
you good at?”
Without
hesitating, my daughter says, “Blowjobs.”
This
is how it goes without a wife for me,
without
a mother for her—
orphaned
idiots.
This
house is a cavern and there are things
neither of us wants to know.
“We
could go to a show,” I say. “Movie and
popcorn, gummi bears.”
“Everything
sucks,” she says, her bangs a purple mop draped over her face
as
she leans so close to the black ball that she could be almost licking it.
“Well
then, what make you happy?”
“Blowjobs.”
I’m
ready for this. We know each other well
and not so well.
“Why?”
“Because
I’m good at them. At least that’s what
they say.”
I
come across the kitchen table and
take
the chair next to her,
waiting
until she looks up, meets my eye.
“What?”
she asks.
“Yes,”
I say. “Let’s start there.”
Hydrophobia
Did
you notice
that
the lake is big enough for two
and
the water’s warm as baked biscuits?
Waves
slop and slosh with the wind;
doesn’t
it sound like messy fun?
Every
boat is far away.
The
sun is a kind, orange blister hanging high.
Overhead
in treetops birds chatter and gossip.
Someone
shore-side giggles.
My
god,
what
more could we want?
Yes,
I know about that.
It
was years ago.
This
is today.
Now.
Your
sister shouldn’t have taken the boat
out
by herself.
It
wasn’t your fault.
It
wasn’t your fault.
It
wasn’t your fault.
Here,
take my hand.
Please?
Did
you notice I said please?
Thank
you.
Now,
just one toe after the other.
That’s
it.
When
you’re ready for more
I’ll
be ready, too.
Fire-eater
Over
the weekend I have become bold and spontaneous.
Did
you notice?
The
glasses are all nicely shattered on the tiled kitchen floor
and
every plate is a rubble of shards and dust.
The
windows will be next to go,
then
I’ll have to decide about these walls.
Look,
even your cat fears me now,
hissing
like a tire under the sofa.
The
real test will be your mother.
She
always said I lacked moxie,
that
I was a timid toad afraid of my own shadow
and
yours as well.
We’ll
see.
I
shan’t throw nary a thing her way,
nor
lay a hand on her.
I’ve
been practicing the art of fire-eating
and
if all goes well
I’ll
have it down by the time she gets here
and
I show her how I can spew flames across the room.
Shadowboxer
It
is indeed exhausting
the
way each day finds me
shadowboxing
myself,
face
beet-red,
soupy
with rank sweat,
tossing
a jab here,
an
uppercut there,
until
my arms are railroad ties
that
can no longer be lifted
even
if the referee was to declare me victor,
even
if I’d finally out-gunned
my
regrets for once.
Terrorism
Right Here At Home
My
son says cops are the real terrorists.
“Here,
just look at this,” he says, holding his phone out
so
I can see the grainy video of police officers
throwing
a black teenager on the ground
while
stomping on his head repeatedly without mercy.
“There’s
more,” my son says.
I
wave him off.
I
feel queasy and guilty for some reason.
“312
African Americans have been killed by cops so far this year.
312! And it’s only July!”
He
waits for me to reply, but I don’t know what to say
any
more than I did when he was a toddler and
his
mother passed away.
Finally
I offer up, “It’s awful.”
He
smiles then, for the first time in years.
“Yeah,”
he says, “And they’re going to pay.”
The
Kid On The Bus
has
dreadlocks--
wispy
orange coils that sprout and loop,
that
look as if they haven’t been washed for weeks,
that
look like termites might be foraging in them,
tearing
down a house or the rain forest.
Around
his ears he has headphones padded the size of a
toddler’s
catcher mitt, though no sound escapes,
yet
he writhes and sways in his seat across the aisle from mine.
He’s
new, this one. I’ve never seen him.
And
still he’s the happiest person on this prison ride to the city.
He
looks nothing like Sam,
yet
I wonder where my son is,
what
he’s doing at this exact minute,
if
he’s content,
if
he ever thinks of me,
or
considers coming back to make amends,
restoring
our family.
When
I look back the kid catches my eye,
pulls
one embellished headphone off his ear and asks if I said something.
I
tell him, “No.”
A
Change of Seasons
That
summer
the
winds took everything away,
every
leaf plucked free like untethered goose down,
tumbleweed
rolling across the highway like bony gymnasts,
pine cones clattering off windshields, though,
as
I say, it was summer.
And
then the sleet and hail came,
hail
the size of hacky sacks and stone-hard,
breaking
windows and denting doors, cars, the city center statue of Robert E. Lee.
We
said our prayers.
We
talked of Armageddon.
When
fall finally arrived
the
world regrew
like
a time lapse fast-forwarded:
Shwwiffttt!...Shwwiffttt!...Shwwiffttt!
We
said our prayers.
We
watched Mother’s boyfriend drive off in a
white-finned
’63 Caddy convertible,
taking
everything he wanted with him,
the
front seat empty yet loaded.
We
watched the taillights wink away.
We
watched for any sign of return.
We
watched the street
for
the rest of that fall
and
into the winter.
The
Man Across The Lake
has
a rifle that he points my way
whenever
I am shoreside.
It’s
a small lake.
I
can almost make out the color of his eyes,
and
sound carries well.
When
I ask why the gun,
he
claims I’m an interloper.
“But
this was my grandfather’s cabin,” I yell at him across the wobbly water.
“Get
off this land or I’ll shoot you sure as hell.”
Something
in his expression,
his
fixed gaze sighting the gun
looks
familiar
and
I remember finding the Polaroids
of
Grandpa and that man--
his
lover--
touching
and kissing in nearly every photograph.
“You’re
him,” I say. “The man in the pictures.”
I
hear a click then,
echoing
from the other side of the lake
as
I turn and sprint.
Halloween
Night
This
pen in my hand
feels
like a rusty scalpel,
heavy
as a stone sword,
and
I’m a bit woozy on nostalgia
thinking
about that night
the
moon let us down so terrifically,
bloody
shadows staining the road forever.
Still
I sign anyway, quickly,
remembering
Ruby’s ruby-red slippers,
the
ones with the flaky Chiclet chips,
her
dressed as Dorothy for Halloween,
clicking
the heels of her shoes three times,
saying,
“There’s no place like home.
There’s
no place like home,”
before
we headed out for the evening.
I
had thought—
a
car purchase,
a
wedding dress and a honeymoon cruise—
any
of these would get my signature
instead
of a death certificate.
“I’m
sorry for your loss,” the man of authority says again,
skirting
my eyes as he attempt to
take
the forms from my fingers.
“Mr.
_____,” the man of authority says,
soft
and frail,
while
I hold tight to the edge of a page,
childlike,
a
toddler in a tantrum,
him
not knowing I’m afraid to let go
the
way I had released
Ruby’s
hand that Halloween night just day ago.
“Mr.
_____, please,” he says.
“Please,”
he says, “don’t you think this has been
difficult
enough already?”
