rebeccah
accused
of being a wolf in sheeps
clothing
don’t tempt me
to go and change my
clothes
It continues with decorated cups holding tea that smokes like the cigarette we shared, the cold rain on the summer afternoon driveway outside the window, our still unmade bed that seemed so big and so small. We drove the curving county two-lane, temporary fog and ancient trees our witnesses, especially to rumple those sheets and let the duvet slid to the worn wood boards. Now we act civilly, observe confused rituals with your mother’s fine china and bagged tea from the highway convenience store, triangles of toast holding generic jam from a garishly labeled plastic jar. The table cloth is hand-embroidered heirloom cotton, a great-grandmother’s months of work. Your blouse is roughly tossed across the top of an empty chair’s ladderback. We’ve walked your father’s woods on winter days, the bare black bark rising like bars containing us as though our hearts were on exhibit, but today we will take our cups and return to bed, you propped against the headboard in gray camisole and other nakedness, I lying reversed next to you, one hand kneading your left leg while needing you, both speaking of affairs far smaller than our time together. Tomorrow we will travel south through yesterday’s woods, pause to share the shore of the once and future ocean. It will be raining when we reach the city. Strangers with eyes downcast beneath umbrellas will pass each other in barred crosswalks.
One neighborhood stray cries out for food.
His cry pierces my soul.
My boyfriend nicknamed him Jesus.
After years of ignoring him and telling Him to go away, I set out food.
Now, every kind of cat imaginable, even a dog, join Him daily for 2.5 ounces of 9 LIves’ finest.
Jesus looks at me with tired, grateful eyes after eating and purrs,
golden hair matted with spots that another good samaritan shaved,
trying to revive the beautiful coat of long ago.
He watches over at His apostles and seems to say, “With you I am pleased,”
then quietly leaves them to spread the Good News.
This Mighty Oak
you raise a brow at me when
one of your catbirds graces the locusts
with his verbal presents; he rhymes in threes.
i count you among bloodroots. it is perfect math.
there can only ever be so many. you kneel to free
a cuff which has got caught up in garlic mustard.
you are always somewhere i would like to be.
sun bleeds on stalks of black raspberry,
and its thousand little pricks which stay
my legs, and tangles with my hair
so good, ive got to bend low, to free them
before this mighty oak which does not bend.
her shadow rather fills in deep trenches
of the ash trees bark new lichen
clads near as scantily as my hand
does your main stem, when it
really blooms.
Perhaps this body is good enough; of course,
it could be better. It needs to withstand
the pressure of this place, this vice of
cinder and fluorescent and constant sound.
Can it now face the intensity of hundreds
forever always suckling at the teet, the
violence of a state of constant stupidity,
of verbose and fortified turrets of jargon
surrounding a fortress of turgid specialization?
What will I have to become to exist in this
formaldehyde? What must my body learn to be?
Of course it could be a professional body.
I jog it in circles, feed it probiotics, cry often
and dream of limbs strong like tree roots. But
this place rips out trees more viciously than God,
and I know I must become something other
than life. Metal. Stone. I could make my body
like a machine; I could die and keep on going.
Maybe I can find a way to live in this desert,
to go thirsty and still grow; to be ripped
apart continuously, only to root again
and again and again. Like
purslane in the sliver
between
building &
road, I could
hedge my jaded
petals, delicious
with spice
& lust.
it’s not a cocoon.
i’m not a butterfly.
i am an old home.
and my bones are
just settling.
My hair is pressed
against my scalp
in the same way
that yours was
when you slept.
And the bags
under my eyes
are the same bags
that sat beneath your eyes
when you were awake.
it’s no love
child
you’re pregnant
with pain
early contractions
reflexes
to his loud
escalating action
for a week you’ll think
he fractured your wrist
before your water breaks
a flood of realization
plummeting shattering
like a nursery window
denial obstructs
dilation
but long labor
delivers the truth
nine months
after his initial act
you’ll finally
be able
to use the first letter
of the alphabet
to call it by its name
– I WANTED TO BRING YOU TO WHERE LOBSTER GETS FISHED (A CONFESSIONAL, TO COUNTERACT FEELING TOO SMART LIKE A.Z.) –
i wanted to bring you to the eastern coast because we have never tasted authentic just fished lobster before but i cant even imagine what meat that tastes like fruit tastes like that close to the ocean and why does ocean meat taste like fruit if its so far away from land especially our land that’s close to horses and our hometowns. did we ever talk about the things we liked to one another— we used to talk about sad music + how to make margaritas but instead i just drink alone and you have a kidney problem. why would meat so far away taste so much better than the food here? do we remember when i used to write poetry? we went to the lobster restaurant downtown and we kept it lowkey. we paid a day of your wages to eat three rolls of seafood. i paid an hour of work to let my car sit on concrete. we said “of course we want more” knowing we couldn’t afford it right then. do debits really equal credits? we cried when we ate Malone’s the first time. i went to bed that night thinking “does meat really taste that expensive? does expensive really taste like that?” if i could build a machine that turned past tense into present, we wouldn’t be that bad off. when i had my first one thousand in my checking account i thought about ways to buy fresh meat on the eastern coast. its funny the last time i saw the Atlantic was when the Iraq war happened and now im about to see it to make someone else feel better. who even remembers anything before 2016? when i showed you Anne Carson my stupid arrogance thought you wouldn’t get it. now her writing is something we’ve exhausted in conversations. sometimes im embarrassed to write and text like a painful mix between Elizabeth Bishop and DFW and Rupi Kaur. the only secret ive ever told anyone was over a Denny’s Grand Slam. between hashbrowns and my sad attempt to get drunk waitresses to poach my eggs was a lot of different failures. i cant even drive on Nicholasville Road anymore without mentally picturing someone get hit by a car. I ordered Filet Mignon. You ordered Lobster Mac n’ Cheese. We shared the World’s Greatest Dessert. We went home and became drunk off $10 Moscato. There is nothing shameful in that anymore. You’re a manager and I’m in the finance sector. I’m alright here and we can afford the lobster mac forever if we try a little harder.
