For Jane, my companion in so many revisions
I’m
not in a good place. I want out so
I
open the door. The heat collapses on top of me
like
a sledgehammered ox,
legs splayed
across the compass.
Lost in
its entrails are the auguries
I’d hoped
to hear myself announce,
but my
ears are asphyxiating.
Sunlight
drowns everything out.
The
yard looks the same: same grass bushes trees,
same
bricks flowers stones, same chairs,
drawn
now like a comic book,
humid
black lines on every edge.
The
heat’s concentration is absolute;
my thoughts
stampede in panic—
wanton
boys have set their tails on fire:
needles twitching
against red backgrounds,
calm voices
counting down,
snakes rolling in
the dust like donkies.
Sharp reports of
bells and the peal of Glocks,
redistribution of
rage a new entitlement program,
the university of
muzzle velocity,
promise of
rebirth in washing machines and tax refunds.
My father’s
dismay to find himself still living,
inside a
supercomputer on the frizz.
Wolves prowl the sewers.
Between shifts,
assassins and
murderers crack cold ones;
their college
rings gleam in the long afternoon.
Are
there more things now
to
hate? Which hemisphere is
responsible
for this? To minds
bristling
with questions, whatever
catches
in its quills will smell
like
an answer. Watching tv
is
easier than whistling, but
there’s
no turning away, or back, or inward
from
an entire planet immolating itself in protest
of
our radiant, our most resplendant shadow.
My
head is hooded in falling brightness.
You
could fry an egg on my retina.
Born
here, I’ll never get used to it.
The
bathroom is far and the lawn is mine,
so I
piss on it. A little logic at last. My urine is thick
and
amber and departs my body
in a
feckless stutter: not enough fluids.
Prick
and two balls generate form
of
trefoil: carbon and two oxygen,
tiny
cathedral window,
biohazard
(like there’s any other kind).
I
need to sit down.
My
latest angel is picking at my rolled-up sleeve,
one
of those big, insouciant crows,
feathers
the color of burnt, burnt skin. “You know,”
he
confides, “poetry’s fixing to wash you off its hands.
Free
associations aren’t such a bargain anymore,
everyone’s
a shaman.” I’m bummed.
I’ve
been working on this poem since I was born,
pimping
my urchin sorrow to the great world’s woe.
“It’s not fair,” I say, out of habit. “I
looked up to you!”
“No.
You didn’t. You thought you were my totem.”
He’s
on my shoulder, cawing softly, laughing.
“What
a critter is man!
Seriously,
Mark,
reality cannot bear
so
much human being. You’ve broken and twisted it
on your
wheels, then used it to lace your boots.
Fair?
Forget justice, try for mercy.”
He
cocks his head, losing interest.
“I’ll
be glad when you people stop
looking me
in the eye,”
and
like a firecracker he’s gone.
In
the age of peak twilight
the
sky is tanned and crosshatched,
sinking
toward sepia, ready to be archived.
Bark
leaf petal pistil stamen stomata:
everything
comes out of nowhere; it’s time to go home.
Creation
is loosening its syntax, relaxing its grammar,
punctuation
damp spots soon dried up,
then
it will all run together,
past.
In my
throat the oceans are rising, slowly,
acidly,
implacably, reflux of Gaia’s last meal.
Power
evaporates off my tongue, collects in secret pools
somewhere.
Perhaps in the bottom of your
glass.
Hope
for autumn.
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