weak and wild

An Early Morning Kill

2010-08-15T14:07:00.000-04:00

[a first draft]

The bar had snapped down over its hind leg,

where I presume something like a hip would be,

but it was still alive. Its squeaking sounded

like markers on a dry-erase board. Funny

how the mystique of the pest – the echoing

of its scratching in the walls, the blurring

of its shape scurrying across the kitchen floor –

was so distant from the fragile form at the base

of my sink cabinet, panting and staring with

one unblinking eye. It must have been no more

than six inches from the tip of its nose to the tip

of its tail – two-thirds the span of my hand.

My only weapon was the snap trap, which failed.

I could leave it there, sure, and it would starve,

but it had already been dragging the trap across

the floor, and there was just no sleeping with that.

Kneeling with my legs tucked under me, my hands

on my thighs, as if readying myself for prayer,

I watched the beast the way one stares at difficult

equations, begging for solutions to reveal themselves.

Then I pulled a hammer from a small repair kit

and thwapped the little shit with the flat end,

once, twice, until I knew its tiny organs were crushed,

dropped it in the trash, and finally got some rest.

Invisible Woman, a variation

2010-07-10T14:19:00.002-04:00

Your handwriting so much like a female’s forms

such articulated curves to make word bubbles

blown floating up and down the page. And your book

smoothly opened to late-term feminism annotated

with a gliding gel pen and dull pink highlighter

dismantles any hope for standard mid-country values.

Your empty chair two hours I explored until spent

for time and forced to bag my books and leave

you only with a fistful of malt balls as surprises.

Invisible Woman

2010-07-10T08:10:00.002-04:00

The handwriting

the high arches and looping

curves of a female’s forming

bubbles blown floating

up and down

the page and the book

spread open wide

to late-term feminism

in amongst scattered

pens and highlighters

like a nest of dirt and twigs

that somehow holds

so everything looked right

and well-invented.

To add some fun

I laid by the book

a fistful of malt balls

whose chocolate started

melting in the heat.

You came but I missed it

stuck in John Donne

and a little Petrarch

and never saw until I left

without getting your name

or thanks for the candy even.

Eve

2010-06-24T09:29:00.001-04:00

There is the act, then everything

Leading up to it, and the act,

Though we take pictures

And tell stories, is just the endpoint,

Before another round of everything

Starts again: like a first birthday,

Which we celebrate like it means something,

When really it’s every day,

All the hours, driving you there,

That matter most.

Or like the apple, red and crispy,

She sunk her teeth into,

A wet and crunchy symbol

Of disobedience, that somehow stands in

As a moment of revelation,

But it was more the consummation

Of a trend, an internal one,

To question.

And anyway, I don’t like it,

The story, because if she didn’t know

Good and evil, but was still cursed,

Then her free will was useless:

If her choices could effect her fall

If she chose wrong, then she should know

What wrong means; it’s only fair.

And if free will,

To have a purpose, means choosing

Between good and evil,

And biting the fruit meant knowing

The difference, and the knowing

Was forbidden, then she, and we

Were never meant to have it,

And what we hold most dear and sacred

Was an accident, and still a curse.

Masturbation

2010-06-23T21:21:00.000-04:00

From God it starts, from perfect thought, it starts

The slide down, touching stars and clouds,

Raining on our heads,

Seeping deep into the thing of our souls – love, anger, grief –

Until ejaculated into wheelbarrows,

Leaves, dead birds on the driveway.

A hundred conversations clatter – not conversations,

But monologues, soliloquies.

Some still dream of ghosts,

Of prophets spinning words into a judgment,

When judgment was permitted.

Some still dream of afternoons

In a wicked sun, dreaming

Of the ocean and remembering how to wish.