(The Suess Carried Over)
His eyes shine black
His skin is gold
He has a part
I like to hold
And when I hold
that part within
Bang! Bang!
We rush and
rush again.
His form is warm
within the fold.
Our eyes see black
and red and gold.
And now the moment
has been told.
Our Love Is Like a Bomb Shelter, Baby
I like lying safe with you
here in the dark, but still
keep planning in case
I’m left alone.
Why do I hide the bright
jars of pears away,
bring out the dusty sardine tins and
force us to chew the bones
over and over again?
Checking myself for signs of
mutation. So tired of
running from mushroom clouds
that my metaphors
don’t make sense.
He dialed me by accident and I eavesdropped
Tiny phone in my hand, tiny time machine,
bringing me love from last night.
Listening to nothing for well on ten minutes. Imagining
him late in his car last night. Starry Houston flashed
by out the windows. He changed the CD. This one
had a slow, quiet intro. I listened. He burped a small
burp. Then he spit out the window. The sounds were
disgusting but also endeared as they taught me
his normal restraint on these points.
Ain’t I a Woman
Hush Now
You called it unspeakable horror,
the things this girl went through.
But when this girl grows big and ripe
she’ll be the one to tell it.
She’ll have a whole hell of a
tale to tell.
And you won’t be able to speak
when you hear it.
But that doesn’t make it unspeakable.
It’s just not spoken by you.
It’s not your tale to tell.
Girlfriend
When are you going to call me
When are you going to show me
When are you going to prove me
Wrong
When will your phone call complete me
When are you going to take turns and
Be me
When do I give up and set myself free
Embarrassing to Admit
Give me an apron and rolling pin,
I want to gently scold you.
A mother and wife I’d surely be.
Give over to me and see
how well I’d play the lady parts
assigned while on my knees.
And working that power, all
dusted with flour.
My grandmother said when
the day was through, if the
dishes were dirty and her
face unmade, she knew to do
the lipstick first, before
her man got home.
The rest would follow.
Let me tell you what to do
with supplication and honey-
skinned turkeys. A voice
like a whip. Hot oven, red
lips. Yes, let me be your
mommy-wife until I’m bored
again.
Situational Anemia
My body decided to waste a bunch of blood cells and iron on a baby that never came into existence, and now I’m freezing to death.
Also, more than the freezing and the aching and the cranking, I feel vulnerable today. Like an orphan in the snow and like sharks can smell my blood.
I have this marled old-lady sweater that keeps me sort of warm. I wonder if people realize that I’m also using it to shield my person and the thin feminine fabrics that are the only other barrier between them and me.
Instead of the sweater, I wish I had a leather parka lined with wolverine fur. Instead of a barrette, I wish I had a helmet with spikes, and then steel wire wrapped around me like cotton in a protective, noise-blocking wad.
For good measure, I’d hang a sign that says “Leave me alone. Or violence.”
I went and got some green tea. That should help, but I’m starting to think that the only real cure will be getting out of here and lying in the sun for a while. In a plain old bathing suit (and a tampon).
Nicked Spine
The anesthesiologist
drives back to the
hospital. Sirens full
blown in his head. They said:
When her head’s
is smiling but if her
head’s lifted to
forty degrees, the
patient face fills with pain.
This means danger
lawsuits, paralysis?
Taking a hit, hard,
to his med mal.
Cursing the woman
he runs a red light
remembers last night
the way that she
flailed, and he
nicked her spine
and he bit his
tongue hard at her
whining.
Why don’t they stay still.
The anesthesiologist
drives back,
fast as platelets.
He knows how to
fix it:
Blood snatch!
Spine patch!
Blot, clot, caught!
A simple
procedure like it should
have been last night.
Now in her womb
oops her room
bright white nurses fawn.
The cries of the
spawn while the
mother lies smiling
as long as her
head stays down
not lifted up more
than forty degrees.
“A simple procedure,”
he explains and
admonishes
“But only if you can
keep still.”
The mother kept
low on the bed there
just laughs at
him. Laughs like
he’s nothing or
making a joke.
“Everything’s simple,”
she tells them all
“Now. Remember, I
gave birth last night?”
Child
I made this. Within my blood
a chemistry swirled that
created everything inside you.
Like a seed you came out small, but
contained it all. Some for
now, most for later. Like a
balloon. The kind you make
yourself, with liquefied plastic and the
air you breathe. I breathed you out, you steadily
rounded out, just like a soft, slick globe
still warm from me. I pushed
and blew and sighed and hoped until,
the circle done, you entered space,
we cut the strings, and fully formed,
you float away. I shade my eyes and
watch. I wish you ever higher.
Self-Acceptance
I wanted to be an Aphrodite, but it turns out I’m Hera instead. I walk through the playground and little kids I don’t even know slide over toward my legs, like flesh magnets, my big hips their umbrella. Stray cats see me and meow for scraps. Dumb dogs lick my hands.
If you know me in real life, you know I’m followed by a single word, repeated over and over. “Mom. Mom. Mom.” It’s pronounced at slight length, with a crescendo and then a decrescendo. It fades in and out like a siren. Two sirens. Three.
Hera has a stern face. “Get over here now,” she demands. “Stop that fighting,” and “Come fold this l
aundry—what am I, the freaking maid?” and “Hold on. I’m in the bathroom.”
But you remain by her side because she will never let you go hungry. No matter how late your supplications, she will create your science project supplies in time. She will catch your vomit, of course, in her hands and hope to kill anyone who tries to hurt you.
Sometimes Hera longs to venture from her hearth for a moment—to go to a movie or maybe to a bar. She glares at Aphrodite on the television screen. Sighs and flips through a magazine. Skims through a story about some pervert turning a girl into a swan, a lute or a linden tree. Checks again to make sure the door is locked.
Then Hera yawns and falls asleep against her throw pillows that smell like the shoes of little boys.
Malady, Adjusted
Pretty plump wife
your brains are clogged
have I got a product for you.
That’s a pretty plush life
you’ve got going on
so why’re you feeling blue.
If I was to take and
flip your life
dump you out cold in the
middle of the night
what would you do?
Now what in the whole wild world
are you going to do?
Proposal
I’m ready to be my own bride
and lie in my wedding dress in my own bed.
I’ll lock the rest of the world outside.
It won’t be you at my side.
It won’t be Jesus, it won’t be the sea.
I’m ready to be my own bride.
Once married, there’s no need to hide
myself from my spouse, there’s no need for shame.
I’ll lock the rest of the world outside.
I gave myself a merry ride
but the chase is finally over.
I’m ready to be my own bride.
I used to feel lonely inside
but I figured out the cure for that.
I’ll lock the rest of the world outside.
The day has come and I swell with pride.
I’ve finally captured the girl I deserve.
I’m ready to be my own bride.
I’ll lock the rest of the world outside.
Omega Wolf
I was climbing, on my way to achieve a summit
a fame, a fortune, a promotion with a fifteen percent raise
When you stopped me. You said
hey, what’re you doing I see
your boobies your booty your
big jiggle sugar thighs!
I was shining, standing on the stage
accepting accolades, face arranged into
modesty and grace. And when
I stepped down you
caused me to pause, saying
hi there, girlie girl I see you looking
good there I don’t like so much such a big butt but
if you’d let me I’d pork a pie girl and you can
be in my magazine!
I’ve been catcalled and
I’ve been harassed.
But this wasn’t that.
I was running on a track or I was
power walking a mall.
You impeded me.
For one tenth of a second, sidled your
way into the corner of my eye. Mouthed
hi, look at me now whatchoo doing whatchoo
know that I can think about your vagina!
Omega Wolf, I see you. You’re
working yourself up. Would you
fling seed toward me, hope for it to
stick to any part I’ve left exposed
to burrow, gain purchase and
make for you a child who can
climb, who can shine and who
outrun you?
Strongly Felt Sensations
That Music Made Me Cry
She says she doesn’t feel it.
At first I think she’s lying
and why? It’s such a strange,
bald treachery.
Her face says no, and now I
believe it, and now I look
away, as if from a hot
pink stump, a burnt stiff
smile.
At the Animal Shelter, Was a Volunteer
She showed me sick kittens in cubes
that had holes like dots on dice
made for stacking and about to be
stacked in a room that would
filled up with gas, with a
big garage door facing
out to a dumpster convenient for
emptying boxes.
Boxes and boxes that stack and stack.
Kittens without end who are there and then gone.
In order to deal with the memory
I have to consider them surplus.
Too many animals and not enough
demand. Like snack food gone
stale, like shoes out of style.
I told her I went there to shop and
she showed me a holocaust.
So much for customer service, I thought.
While I hate to remember, I tell everybody I
know. They say I’m dramatic and tend to
exaggerate. I tell them to hurry and
get to the shelter before it’s
too late. Save the kittens!
I went for one kitten and left with two cats.
(The older ones’ shelf lives are shorter and
I picked two ripe ones about to expire.) She
boxed them in cardboard with holes in a
pattern like dominoes. Gave me an
unhappy smile. Walked me to government
employees and bid me goodbye.
After Hours of Girls Gone Wild
my retinas are embossed by
lumps of nubbly flesh, hard
pressed against my TV screen.
Thousands of members got
stoked then stroked, I’m sure,
in response, and it’s the same
beige, pink-tipped, poky flesh.
And my retinas crave some
mental zest—something a
little bit more like sex.
Curtainless Bohemian Girl
Everyone can see, except
for why
Watch the boys who
watch you, or maybe
write a poem or
two
Maybe ride your bike to
someplace new
A soundtrack rises ’round
There’s nothing better to
be doing
’Til you’re old and
vulnerable
and cover your
windows.
Sunflower
The title of this poem is Sunflower.
I liked the sound of the word.
Sunflowers stared from the side of the road.
Their faces were lovely and so was the word.
Why There Are So Many Songs About DJs
The marionette Master
reaches inside and
changes my heart rate.
Makes my blood flow, warmly
sting, buzzes my head ’til I
can’t feel a thing except
for what he gives me.
Makes his force reverberate
and I don’t mind a thing.
Make my body scream and
if you’re good I’ll be a zombie
for you. Reach inside me, wring
me out and late at night
I’ll feel you in me, I’ll feel
wrung like after all the
long days at the beach.
Your wavelengths rock me back
and forth now, even in my sleep.
And if you’re good you’ll string me
up and along until I drop. If
you’re good I feel the strings of
sound that go between.
Betwixt your spinning and my
heart. Feels like love.
Pleas
e don’t stop.
Winter
I like pine sap. Who doesn’t like to sit
still for a while and take note of the turn
of the world. Our earth is a green and brown mystery,
and your boss lets you stay home to notice for once.
Once in November, once in December.
I like stories of rags to riches. I love
stories of rags to incredible God-like power.
The idea that angels will herald a hitherto
under-appreciated soul. The heavens themselves will
set down a big star. That whole drama appeals to me.
Plus it has donkeys and sheep. All
set to the drum of the sweet Baby’s shadow, that
rags-to-remixed drummer boy.
I like sugar and I like sparkling. Red berries, candles,
hot rum or wine. Buzz in my ears of the trusty
old harmonies. Handel and hand-bells. Donnie, Marie.
Suck on the pulp then and lick up the juice.
Ignore the pith, the seeds, the rind that’s
the rest of our lives.
This Girl I Know
She cries “I’m broken!”
And calls down around us
all the predators on land, in sky.
I don’t know how to mend her.
She screams like a bird in my ear.
I turn my head. The smell
of blood is making me sway.
I turn and slip away. I’ve
had my fill. I’m in the water
where it’s warm and deep and
she can’t follow.
Goodbye. Good luck.
Springtime Is an Indomitable Monster
They iced the azaleas down today
dropping bits of winter in vain
tried to rain on the springtime parade
that should have come two weeks later,
on schedule for the yuppies.
And yet
the neon blood spewed forth. They
grew fully grown. Spring sprang,
sprung to life right under their
dirty fingers. It told them,
“You will never, you will never.”
Spring lets you bed it, not
bend it. Not bend to your will.
You won’t. It will.