The night’s too dark to see, but I can
hear them
walking
in the field next door:
coyotes
their steps like broken straw, breath
I imagine
stale with the taste
of carrion
their cries a bit more
mournful
than before
as if they know that they’re no longer
the ugliest
among us.
Someday, it will be the end.
It will be over
and if you believe in Heaven,
I will rip you from your mother’s warm embrace
pull out the thick umbilicus and strangle you
with the only thing you ever
truly wanted
watch you fight the blackness that creeps into your eyes,
bursts of light, the sound
of rushing water
in your ears
the silence that welcomes you
home
bring you back
and start again.
“I don’t care what you think of me,” he shouts
into his megaphone,
short fat body like a pillbug all rolled up and just as smart
words like stagnant water, they have
no substance
no ability to hurt
or to wash anything away
“I don’t care what you think of me,” he shouts
garbled speech slowed down at the ends, sharpened by hate
but still
as dull as his head,
“I don’t care what you think
but tell me
What do you think?”
And his insides must be slick as mud, rotten fruit and
the smell of regret, knowing
he was never anything
and in his head, the wires cross
short out the reality
the future like a blacklight
showing all the shit he’s done
showing all he stands to lose.
“I don’t care what you think of me,” he shouts
sour tongue begs for a reaction, throwing epithets and hope
like a monkey throwing shit
“I don’t care what you think of me-”
I don’t.
I have paid a thousand hours penance
for her spun silk hair and faded blue eyes
sliced my voice on the shattered glass of fragile Christmas bulbs
golden stars and sparkling orbs, blue and red and green
and touched with glitter
in the center of something plastic, the holy parents pray
over the lifeless molded body of the baby
with no eyes.
I could never reach the top
with the icicles I threw.
In the dark, the lights throw colors at the wall
and the threads that hold the past together
rot away and die.
For those of you who are interested in such things, here’s the new book: a collection of some of my most controversial work, including “A Love Letter to Pat Robertson” and “Mother Whore and the Monsters on the Hill.”
As always, thank you for your constant support. I appreciate you all more than I can say.
Wouldn’t it be nice if age
crept up on us now like it did
when we were small
hidden behind smooth cheeks and shiny hair
long sun-browned limbs and the eternal
slowness
of youth
until it shone forth with some remarkable
First
A loose tooth, a love note, a wobbly two-wheeled flight
into the grass beside the road
A kiss, and then a heartbreak
Making us feel tall and wise and called full-speed ahead
into life
Instead, now, it marks our faces
dull graffiti showing us
whose turf we’re really on
dragging us ahead
past the mirrors that reflect
where we have been
streetlights burning out, no one there to call us home
the fading taste of homemade jambalaya on our tongues
the ribbons in our hair long since trampled
in the mud
We are taken by the hand and pulled
without grace or comprehension
through a sharp and stinging maze
of inevitable
Lasts.
Shy at first,
(the way you are when you begin to realize
that your invisible friends
and Santa Claus
aren’t real
but you make your lists and set out
extra teacups
anyway)
I was hesitant to speak
mumbled out into the dark
and empty room
the echo I imagined
shut me up and turned
to live-to-dead telepathy
thinking pointed thoughts toward the earth, the sky
the universe which sat
petulant
refusing
to respond
I thought perhaps
a translator might help,
dialed 1-800 numbers, spoke with
aging housewives wrapped in tattered terrycloth
chain-smoking cigarettes and lying
that they knew the dear departed
I sought evidence of soul recycling,
a familiar turn to a feline eye
or the cast of a particular note
on the breath of a dying bird
clutched between the jaws
of a tame domestic short-hair
For the hell of it,
(having packed away the tea set
left the stockings and the reindeer food
ashes on the hearth)
I raised my voice in a half-terrible
supplication mimic
asked the one they said would save me
for a sign that they were there
Too busy killing babies
and enchanting football games
the silence soothed me
like a love song
And the ground devoured them.
April Fox 