The Stroke
[Reprinted from Poetry,
August 2000]
On a grabbed
notepad we scribbled
messages to
your face,
forced your eyes
open, waited
for
a nod, a squeeze,
scribbled more,
torn between letting
you sleep, making
you see our words
not sure we'd
said
enough through the years,
scrawling, tearing
sheet after sheet.
The
Guard
[Reprinted from Bottomfish, Spring 1998]
At woods' end
we hear
the grind and roar. See
toothed shovels forcing
soft green into chunked
brown rubble, three
bulldozers shoving
field into mall.
But this egret
still
standing in its pond,
unruffled by the rumbling wheels,
staring into blue air,
locked there
in its thin white uniform.
At the Pediatrician
When I ask about
her height,
he points along the graph,
says, She'll be … continuing at this rate …
about … five three and a half.
I laugh, because
that's exactly
how tall I am, because she's got
my chin and hair already,
a mole on her face where mine's at.
While he shines
his penlight, I see
myself inside her, imagine
the graph we share for melancholy,
a fixed, straight line.
T w i n
Today
as you talked
miles
away on the phone
I heard
my own
voice
coming back,
remembered
our trick
as kids,
switching beds,
my giggles
Mom and Dad
thought were yours in the dark,
then
what Mom said,
that even
the doctor
with his
stethescope examining her
was fooled
listening
forty years ago
to our
hearts in the womb,
certain we were one
and an echo.
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[Reprinted from Gulf Coast]
Jesus said, “
Woe to the flesh that hangs from a soul.
Woe to the soul that hangs from flesh.”
The Gospel of Thomas
Dear Meat: you have a problem we can’t fix.
You
can’t be saved, since you’re not spiritual.
You may as well just suck that crucifix,
Curl like a dog that licks an injured paw
Over
and over, just making everything worse.
Your new disease is what you are: your crawl,
Your tricks, your spells, the quoted Bible verse—
This day you shall be with me in Paradise—
Are proofs the soul will kill to get a divorce.
Red rib cage burst to mouth, and mouth to vise
Too
clear for teeth, and teeth too sharp for lips,
Lips too cut for anything that’s wise . . .
You sit at the bar while little girls with hips
Fight
over you, or what they think you are.
One is angry, and would love to cash your chips
With a nail in either wrist, a nail to star
The
ankle’s nebula together loud.
I could have called an angel legion here
Or disappeared into the milling crowd,
Laughing
as they crucified my double.
I don’t
belong here! We say this when in doubt,
Or when it’s clear we can’t seduce our trouble.
•
Weren’t
wearing much, as if to tempt the flesh
Of
blinded soul turned into skinless, moaning
Meat. I wanted them inside me, like bone
Beneath
a wound, bruised and aching to poke
Bloody
air. I wanted them to take
Control
and whip me into whatever shape
You
need to take the nails right up the wrists.
The
demons of mercy licked my skin, my nipples,
I
felt as pretty as Jesus on the Cross,
His
perfect body, mostly nude, and cut
Like
vinegar, not wine. Oh, Christ is hot
For
you, he wants the part you keep inside
Your
mouth, the pearl that only tongues of flame
Stiff
up to tongue. And when you speak in
foreign
Languages,
your lips produce new blood.
And
don’t forget the crown of thorns. I want
Mine
forged of white titanium and wrapped
Like
a bustier around my waist, as tight
As
flesh bites down on soul, and won’t let go.
Oh,
little girl, the world is coming to an end,
You
may as well just let the boys come pull
Your
hair, the way I let them suck my side—
The only thing they draw is holy water.
•
Dear
Gas: the orthodox are not so sure
The soul arises without heavenly flesh.
And
anyway, who’d want to be so pure
You’d
lack the eyes to see with, skin to touch
Those sexy angels, and their diaphanous
gowns
So
clear you can see colors through, like fish
In
lacey nets, the ruby pinks and browns
They like to rub against your spirit
back
As
if by accident. Like lascivious nouns,
I
know the flesh can take you off the track
And dump you in some barroom all alone
With
country music and a mood so black
You’d
blow your brains out if you had a gun.
That’s why everyone I know won’t
arm
Themselves. Depressed, we’d suck the bullet home
In
hopes it hit the burrow of the worm
That coils around Pleasure. So crucified,
It
would be worth the flat and useful burn,
Meat
free of consciousness, free to decide
If tongue and skin, exploring space,
should frisk
Each
other, blood and muscle, or retract
False
teeth, that candy-ass spear of a leafy kiss.
• • •
Cemetery by the Deer Blind
[Reprinted
from The Missouri Review]
So
this is the cemetery, the sunken graves
And
limestone from the nineteenth century.
Mesquite outlines the reach
of skeleton,
Dead
pioneers, who’ve nothing to do with me
Or
you, except this walk through cactus groves
And
cattle walls that no one minds anymore.
Huge spider webs, like old
relationships,
Were
promises through which we blindly tore
Right
to the line, the barb and wire, the dead.
Right
here, their chests collapsed beneath the dirt
As if the heart and history,
too weak,
Could
not support the burden, or the work.
Oh,
Evelyn, for every change we make,
We
make a grave. The past does not slide
on
Like shoulders over twisted
wire. You shrug
The
skin off, diamond back, then snap the turn
The
way trails take you back where you’d begun.
These
ranchers ended up in this mosquito
Grove. It could be worse; this park surrounds
Their
enterprise, the traces of water holes
And
wagon wheels, wild birds, and rabbits built
To
tear across the jack, the mesquite brush,
Persistent, armadillo-like,
and slow.
Oh,
Evelyn, for every skin you touch,
You risk the leprosy. I let you cut
The
deltoid into target and the sign
Of alligator pigs gone wild,
the feral
Byzantine,
mosaic without design.
The
dead are kicks inside the pricks, the tale
More
interesting than ours, unreason in
The formula. Grasshoppers on the shirt.
Fat
spiders over the only trail that seems
To
take us out, if out is anywhere.
But we’re the lucky ones, the damaged ones,
The shallow sky, the clay of
orange fire,
Deer
shit like liver, the play of cactus tongue.
Eye
peeling like the mesquite does its bark,
I
know we’re in here somewhere, like that turtle,
Getting a little air, but just
enough—
A
mouthful bites off all the change that matters.
Richard Mather Aboard the James, 1635
Therefore hath
he mercy on whom he will, and whom he will he hardeneth.
Romans 9:18
Geneva Bible
Gray
water, fortress waves: we feared God’s wrath,
But found the way most smooth,
with porpoises
And
dolphins sporting ‘round the bowsprit’s haze
Escorting us like angels to the New
Jerusalem,
the colonies, the Church
Where
sheep are shepherded away from goats
By ministers distinct from
wolves. The flock,
The
Church Invisible, are dolphins arcing
Out
of the profane, then back into the brine
Of gravity and flesh, the NO to grace
That
drags saints to the city beneath the sea.
Jonah’s
our curse: we preach to souls we hate.
The
sea rises up as if to swallow us,
As if the boat, tossed like
a false confession,
Spells driftwood, the lamb that wanders away: my soul
. . .
I
preach, but I don’t know if I am saved . . .
Some days, the sun burning
especially bright
And
true, the crew sharpens a small harpoon,
Takes a porpoise that frolics close to the bow.
Once
opened upon the deck, the entrails spill,
The
liver, lights, the heart and guts, the spirit
Of the thing, for all the world
a swine,
As
if we were back in sweet muddy Norwich,
The
kingdom of the Beast. The countryside
We
stumbled through, here present on the sea—
The Savior gutted out for us, a fish
Filleted
and butchered like an English hog.
The
stench of the Divine: the carnal mind
Like a squeamish vegetarian.
We eat
The stuff of God, afraid justification
Attacks
our sanctity, the gizzard walk
Of prayer and fasting, the
frolicking of flesh.
Into the rollers, glowing red and green,
They
take their bitter diving like a grace,
A
grace that breaks them down for sacrifice,
Then butchery, blood, and the
wake of vicious God.
The
Kingdom is a song you almost hear
Out
of a sea confused with tearing fins
And rudders pointing nowhere. Salvation pokes
Like
fingers slicing up to take a piece
Of
what drains through the painful fist: the World,
The
Flesh, The Devil. Heaven’s Ephemeral.
These dolphins prove that grace
is subject to
The knife of lust, the history of kitchen.
These
fallen angels point the way to Hell,
The Belly of the Beast, the
Hogs of Earth,
The
Porpoises of Gehenna. I took a knife
A crewman sharpened on his whetting stone
And
I myself opened the chattering chest.
Like
a heifer, red and perfect, it suffered God—
At sea! High priest of the Covenant Renewed,
I
felt nothing. My congregation felt
Nothing
but the sharpening of steel on stone,
The fear of promises forgotten, lost.
I’m
afraid God’s changing his great Mind again.
And
the blade’s held up to Isaac’s chest, and nothing
Arcs
into the scene to tell me NO,
God’s razor shaving history
right off
The farm while the Kingdom folds and turns away.
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