Revision in
The KUTZTOWN UNIVERSITY BOOKSTORE
has made its presence known
in the middle of a Nathaniel Mackey poem.
Who to blame?
The SALES CASHIER: JEN,
the one who sold
01
SUBTOTAL (TOTAL)
on 1/30/07 10:39.
She must have known,
the intuition of fingers
when she had slipped the sales slip—
“PROUDLY SERVING YOU”—
into Ghede’s speech
that she had performed a service
of national merit
in restoring the lost
middle page of Mackey’s poem.
I cannot see now
how Ghede’s mantra
“what does all this loving make?”
would ever ring true
without that slip.
Without that slip,
Ghede chants himself down either page,
his hands holding onto his own
bent elbows touching
the exact same pair
on an opposite side.
For years it slept,
tucked into Mackey’s sheets
for Ghede to hold again.There are Enough Good Enough Things
Don’t eat alone.
Eat with a friend.
Watch, they’ll say....
Oh, you have class?
Well, sometime later.
Talking with your parents is not a friendship.
The alone by-yourself gestures of desperation.
Use your computer for something worthwhile.
What email would come? You Sourpuss.
Looking at pornography—Sourpuss—
is condemning yourself to a mossy life in a well.
Don’t talk to yourself you already know what you will say because you are the one saying it.
Chatter is unsettling,
empty.
If on the beach you will find happiness on the next wave in.
Stop writing things down.
Removing the English language from your working memory
will make you happier by making it harder
for you to articulate just how alone you feel.
If you have no language, you can start screaming.
Coffee?
Coffee?
Do you want coffee?
Let’s get coffee?
Oh, I see.
No one wants coffee?
Drink tea then.
Hyperventilate while saying the rosary.
Rapture in a gift box.
Don’t sigh.
There is no guilt in expressing relief that your life is almost over.The year of his death
after John Wieners
In 1967 Wieners's lover left him and went to
– “John Wieners Papers,”
It came quickly,
an unruly collection
blinking and unblinking.
It never cared
for staring. Hanging
outside the reach of
this afternoon. I wondered
how the dull light, piercing
as arrows found
me today. Full of
mistakes. I mumbled
my prayers. I kept
St. Sebastian, tethered
and pious, in mind:
how the shafts
disrupt the stretch
marks on his
sacred gut. Those angry,
red fingers, like
ripples from a pebble
dropped into his
belly button wishing
well by a sleep
deprived child.
Most in the pews act
like they are not clearly
aroused by their secrets,
even as their pants shake.
To clear my
mind, I remembered
the breath of the children
of the future,
and what it will
remind me of, the acidic
poisons in my night
sweat, and the confident sex
appeal of pilgrims lying
through yellow teeth.Select Comfort
These are the nights I
appreciate my
new queen-sized mattress
and the rituals
involved
in sleeping
next to another.
At first, I wanted
guidelines,
directions.
What about nightmares,
tossing and turning,
endless bickering?
Easily enough
they became steps in
a nightly
routine:
you lie next to me,
we pretend to sleep
until it happens,
we do not have sex
unless we want to.
Sympathetic to
the truce we make when
we undress, and brush
our teeth, wash heavy
faces. The hygiene
of self and other—
examination—
judgments forgotten
when you turn the light
in the bathroom off
and slip under the
covers that hold me,
house us like orphans.
This is our retreat
from stress
and pressures,
my weakness lying
next to your body.
Our hearts
listening
for the other’s beat
while our body heat—
exoskeleton
fills in-between space.
Light breaths harmonize
yet not in tandem.
Shut eyes imagine
how we now appear:
tired,
unguarded
graven images
softly releasing
domestic incense.
Your body might sink
into the mattress,
leaving nothing but
bones for my desperate
hands to rummage through
to rub together
The friction of lust
pulverizes them.
The gray dust of you
covering my hands.
I have never felt
such skin
like parchment.
Forgive me for that
rude comparison
to preserved calf skin.
Don’t think of yourself
as the sacrifice,
you,
the offering.