6.04 / April 2011
The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living Or, How I Recall You, Absent, With Two Red and White Things, Memento Moris
I.
White on red Oso Negro
Vodka
Destilado 100% de Grano
38% Alc. Vol. CONT. NET.
desde 1940
the black bear, the red halo
the abuse of this product
is damaging to your health
a pale sweat line
your brow and red
scalp
bottled & distributed by
Casa Cuervo, S.A de C.V.
RÃo Churubusco 213
Col. Granjas México D.F.
hecho en México
our blood, our bone
II.
Pall Mall [...]
Refinishing
[from The New Technical Manual of Use]
As I observe a disease, so I catch it and give it lodging in myself.
Michel de Montaigne
The integumentary system (from Latin integumentum, to cover), or skin, is the body’s largest organ system. It is comprised of mesodermal tissue (epidermis, [...]
Underskirts
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Girl #1
She found me with my hands around chickens, fingers stretched wide, thumbs over beaks. My skirt, mud-weighed, tugged at my ankles as I dipped low. Silly to curtsey while armed with birds, I knew, but it had to be done. If I’d let go they’d’ve flown [...]
Clock Time (The Shape of Time Keeping)
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To best preserve this piece’s original formatting, it is being made available as a PDF for your reading enjoyment.
New Math
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I Wear a Leather Jacket in My Head
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I wear a leather jacket in my head. I ride a motorcycle in my head. I snort powders and don’t take showers in my head. Sometimes I sing for an imaginary punk band. Scream through a microphone and vomit onstage. Rip off my clothes and cut my [...]
Two Poems
Mrs. Speaks
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She stands before a window speaking
with a friend, she shifts like compost collapsing
beneath a dress in summer heat. On her nose
a wreck of warts that glisten in light like elvers.
She’s remembering out loud: “When the workers
marched Badger came home to find Henry
had my skirt up past [...]
Porch
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Over the phone, a woman I used to see tells me about her nightmares. What do you know about dreaming, I think.
“I couldn’t even begin to tell you,†she says. From the bathroom, the washing machine clicks off.
“Go ahead,†I say. “Try.â€
“Well,†she says, “one time I [...]
Len and Ernie
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My brother don’t know it, but he ain’t long for this world. I’ve been carryin’ him around our whole life, and he ain’t never once carried me. I’ve been eatin’ and drinkin’ and sittin’ and standin’ and walkin’ and talkin’ for him since we was born and [...]
What We Had To Do
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The fragments pulled smoke streamers down the sky, lit in our grass, caught in our tree limbs–smoldering ornaments, ashes, white light. We rushed out with blankets and fire extinguishers.
Enough was enough.
We met in the church basement. We didn’t argue this time. In low voices, with grim faces, we planned. [...]
The Church of Best Guesses
One is always alone in the Church of Best Guesses. If the Church believed in miracles, this would surely be one of them. But the Church considers it blasphemy to designate anything a miracle, which presumes insight into the mind of God, an impossibility for mortal witnesses to any divine [...]
Only After Drinking Heavily Can I Admit to All of It
She seduced us both. I wanted to be wanted. I liked it when she and I began to flirt; it was sexy to have a girl be attracted to me. I liked her hair and her fingernails and her thighs like firm and tender cuts of meat below her panties. [...]
Two Poems
EXPERT ADVICE FOR YOUR BOXING CAREER
In a parallel space, you and I are boxing, ring spattered with last night’s blood, the wreck of our loved ones. In a gym miles wide, clusters of rings: showcases for the pugilism that infects us, the maniac gene, our heads tilted downward, your hazel [...]
The Breathing Dead
Richard stands outside the room with his eyes closed and his head bowed and thinks around the edges of the boy, the back of his neck and his bottom lip and the graceful architecture of his collarbone. The paint-spotted glass knob is exactly zipper level and he presses against it. [...]
Dear Exclamation Point
Dear Exclamation Point,
It’s hard to listen to you talk. You sound so unsure of everything you say. It’s like every word you speak is you begging for approval.
Do you feel so beneath everyone? Is that why you so badly (and obviously) want them to think you’re smart?
We would have probably [...]
Three Poems
In the Hotel Room After Our Wedding
Tuxedo stained by champagne
and butter cream icing,
beaded gown now heavy
on my ribs,you were careful
not to yank as you added
more bobby pins to our pile,
a mound of metal,
how did it hold all this hair up,
a smile, fingers dancing,
undoing the bridal stitches.
After It Falls Apart
I chew [...]
Four Poems
PAPER ATROCITIES
These days it’s not enough simply to be
good in bed. Afterward you have to get
up & try to be good essentially
everywhere else too. Good, essentially,
is the new bad. Yesterday, for instance,
I was taking pot shots with my pellet
rifle at some hippies loafing behind
the BK, chuckling as they hopped & [...]
Rose by Another Name
My wife had a stroke at forty, leaving her unable to express happiness. When poor Irene tried to smile, she exposed just her eye teeth, like little fangs. The doctor said it might be temporary. It wouldn’t have been so bad if she hadn’t been a happy person before. [...]
Neither Shall You Steal
After shopping at the Big Lots, headed for the car,
she sees the child has something in his fist.
“What’s this?†she asks, leaning in,
his small fingers locked around an artificial
flower. A silk gentian from China, so breathtakingly real
she has to feel it when he holds it up, and she says, “Joey,â€
the [...]
Four Poems
Some Advantages to Casting Angels in Pornographic Roles
Angels don’t care about money; contracts can be fulfilled with hallelujahs.
Divine auras cut back on the need for set lighting.
There will be a guaranteed increase in DVD sales throughout the Bible Belt.
There will be free publicity when holy-rollers start protesting & after the [...]
Things Every Woman Should Know About Love
1. Birth
I was born under a sky that poured. My mother’s water wasn’t the only thing that ran that day; it was raining so hard the ceiling caved in and the windows almost broke. The streets were flooded and a trip to the hospital was out of the question. It [...]
Give a Man a Boner
Give a man a boner and he’ll take a mile. If your hands are on me and I say GET YOUR HANDS OFF ME sometimes I mean that’s what I am supposed to say so my mouth makes the sounds that they should and my body sort of twists away [...]
Man from the Attic
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Yesterday afternoon I was lying on my bed flipping through a magazine when a man emerged from the attic. The attic door is next to my bedroom so I’d heard him coming down the stairs, but he was so quick about it that I didn’t have time [...]
Three Poems
Underground People
I like your loud music.
You make it easy to read omens in license plates
and furry, pepper-studded rain-heads.
There is so much I want to say. Maybe we should stop.
Have something to eat instead. Buy bathing suits,
or masturbate in separate rooms while we read
aloud the Russians scored by your fathers’
underhanded commentary.
Don’t [...]
Please Come In
They’ve just finished. They’re putting themselves back together, smoothing their clothes and hair. His is the color of dead leaves; hers the ruddy meat of a fig. They brush their teeth using the same brush, something she does not usually do. There is a large mirror in the bathroom and [...]