Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.
The fractured arm’s a corridor
leading away but always to the heart.
The ache in the side makes a carpet
to dull all other noise.
The cheeks will be pillows for stone
birds that water calcified.
The ear’s a funnel sifting sand and
sugar, salt and wind and sand.
The eyes shutter open
to a finger’s leverage.
The chest shines out, brave as any brittle
figurehead of carved and painted wood.
The brow bends to the earth to kiss
a pebble of humility.
In response to Via Negativa: Water Way.
Here are the days
that fold into the cool
and tumble, coppered,
toward the end of the year.
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.
of makeshift covers, of inner tubes
that keep the clapboard houses
from scattering in mildest wind—
Give thanks for light, unbilled,
that comes through holes drilled
into iron roofs and plastic bottles
filled with water and bleach—
Give thanks for the width and girth
of flood tunnels underground,
where the homeless can lie down
on castoff furniture and pallets—
Give thanks for the forgotten sentinel
hoisted on a pedestal outside, who opens
her arms of chipped paint and plaster
in mercy above the Blue Angel Motel—
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.
The sugar houses tilt; through open windows,
catch the drift of wine-dark voices in the rain.
The clapboard shingles drum a faint tattoo
and fences sag beyond the driveway’s rough terrain.
A clothesline hung with linens might swing
the distance from one windowsill to the next.
But space is paramount and plaster does the trick;
and paint’s the cheapest blanket to prime the deck.
We’re told a home’s no longer a place to live
until you die: we’re told the savvy thing is flip
the property before it turns into a crooked house—
So take possession, but mind how all is still a tenantship.
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.
“Let us stay here, and wait for the future
to arrive, for grandchildren to speak
in forked tongues about the country
we once came from….”
~ Tishani Doshi, “The Immigrant’s Song”
What comes out of my mouth’s a tinny sound,
whatever comes out of yours is gold.
The mat my hungry sister wove three months,
you pay a handful of pennies for.
The dress that’s draped, metallic sheen
on shoulders of the mannequin, is cheap
as her perfume. Her legs, splayed open
in the dim boudoir, tell time rented
by the hour. You did not live that decade
when tanks rolled over bodies in the streets,
when martyrs lay in blood on concrete fields.
You did not see the bridges fall, the sky
explode with ashes. My solidarity, you cry;
you try to mimic, like a bird, the sounds
the fallen made. You gather stories not
your own and pin them to your breastplate.
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.
Here is my passport, my bill of lading, my one-
way ticket, my nowhere fare, my stub you’ve stamped
to certify. All night I clean the lint
from rusted laundromat machines. All night
I mop and polish schoolroom floors. All summer
while you go off to Florida or France, I tend
your mother’s bones, empty her bedpan, feed her baby
food as she babbles in the granny bin. My fingers
have pulled bodies of bitter melon from the vine
and splayed them open on the chopping board.
Come sit and eat with me sometime— I’ll make
a meal from seeds and pith, a sustenance of green
and verve plucked raw from my own nerve. I steel
myself, passing through each turnstile, bending
through each furrow, threading the factory needle back
and back into a hundred collars and sleeves— Eyes
that sweepingly appraise the education in my hands,
the dusky sheen of my corn, the perfume of my salt
and pickled shrimp, the bile I drop
into the soup to make me strong.
In response to Via Negativa: Trader.
Your mouth has left
the faintest stain
on the rim of the cup;
now I want to look
for a bungalow, a cape
cod, a craftsman
with wide bay windows
looking out on the river
over which birds fly
at this time of year,
not wanting to stick around
for the cooler weather.
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.
Do you know how much honey remains in the hive?
The wind teaches the body to tuck in its corners like sheets in a hotel.
Neon signs lie— in those furtive cells, not all things revive.
Do you know how much honey remains in the hive?
Open a jar and consume its contents; but leave me a sweet to archive.
Did you love that house, all honeycombed; its molecules and golden bell?
Do you know how much honey remains in the hive?
The wind teaches the body to tuck in its corners like sheets in a hotel.
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.
Confronted by a bridge, they are the ones who bring up references to falling water in early modern American architecture. Oh wait. But that’s premised on their ability to recognize that Prairie Style and Textile Style are not random but deliberately constructed marketing descriptions from a retail catalog called Urban Chic. Or perhaps they skim through books like How to Talk About Practically Anything and Sound Smarter Than You Really Are. It may not be apparent but there is a relationship between a culture’s consuming habits and the prevailing literacy rates. In yesterday’s paper there was a story on yet another librarian who lost her job for encouraging a fourth grader to read. The kid read at least three or four books a week and had won every prize at his county library— little plastic cup, pencils from the Dollar Store, bookmarks, a T-shirt donated by the Rotary Club. I’m willing to bet he could explain how The Odyssey is still relevant and as exciting as Nintendo or an RPG. Parents complained that their children couldn’t keep up; they wanted the staff to just draw names out of a hat. Fields of soybean and cotton bordering the road. New construction sites in an area the city council calls the new industrial corridor. Intermittent sweep of taillights— In the dead of night, there’s still never enough light to see by, much less read signs: deer crossing; soft shoulder; road freezes over; sheer drop. The GPS couldn’t save you; it would take more than twenty years to bring you home to yourself.
In response to Via Negativa: The Devil Hears Voices.
So what if the beautiful ones always sit in the first row, where the lights strike their hair and jewels the brightest? So what if their fathers have paid for the places they occupy, with little regard for how much it costs others? They post Selfies with captions like “Thing is, I don’t give a shit.” The potted trees in the atrium are equally beautiful for having no memory of origins. They breathe in the temperature-controlled air but do not bend their branches. A little boy pees in the terra cotta basin, unable to keep it in any longer. Outside, a storm begins its orchestral arrangements: tympani and brass; winds. But night’s darkest tuxedo is the mother of all corporations. I want to tell the guard who ushers out the errant boy and his crestfallen parent, You are mistaken. It is holy to feel the visceral coursing through you, unstoppable like wind or water. If you ever opened your mouth to the rain, perhaps you might understand how a string stretched as if near breaking gives off that depth of sound. Think of it like stars rushing through the roof. Think of the solitude of the lonely, the destitute, the ailing. Then try to play it again: the kind of music that trembles the skin, escapes the strictures of syntax.
In response to Via Negativa: My Dream About Playing the Guitar.