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Fish
Even small fish won't bite on the worms
my dad and I bought at the barber's shop.
Impatient, we start a fire in some rocks,
and I watch the ants fight over our worms,
the river lap our chairs, smoke rise, and no
birds hang. No mice, no snakes, nothing stirs
except our bobbers undulating--red,
white. Not fiddling with the line as Dad does,
I make my bobber float farther than his.
For lunch, we share a can of sardines.
What a waste--nothing to show at the shop
whose walls are hung with fish only Paul
Bunyan could've landed. Dad keeps his mouth
shut as the barber clips his hair while I
read 'Field and Stream' and dream of trout fried
in an iron skillet--meat, white and flakey.
Even my thumbs seem to ache from their gills.
Friend
My nose is too big,
I tell my friend,
and she says, "Get some
horns, too." But I am
always horny.
She says, "Fine, fine,
fine, go get yourself
a lady whose hair
is as black and curly
as yours. Go get you
a lady with skin
freckled like yours.
Get your self for as
much as you're worth."
And I get myself,
and she leaves me.
"Where were your fangs?"
She asks. "You get some
fangs and I'll never
go away." So I
grow some fangs then get
myself again
and again. This, what
it was like to get
myself again.
Double Life of Veronique
Sometimes it's my heart pittering away
as I try to sleep--the sheets rise and fall,
not from my breath, but from my quaking chest
becoming, it seems, someone else's chest
--what else is left? You push snooze, put the room's
phone on low, and I toss, dream I'm in Poland
but miss France--ferns, sparkling green river
--sometimes it's so much patter, conversation
lurches and all I can hear is the other
diners and clinks on their plates. Sometimes it's
a harp. Sometimes, a tree shaking its leaves
--the whole summer's world startled then settling
--but mostly it's a singer catching up,
wheezing up a hill, or feet crashing down
one, trying not to fall, trying too hard
until the pace evens and the song,
suddenly, over--lingering bitterness
too sweet to discard. Your camera poised
on the tripod, and myself hurtling
through the lens, 'picture me.' Your Leica
colors the things I don't understand
--her red hair bruising the clouds and wet stones
next to my streetcar and my face in its
window as her soul floats and her voice swells.
Painter
What a position to put myself,
hanging over the eaves and slapping
paint on what, I couldn't see--my mother's
friend's husband holding on to my ankles.
I didn't think to ask him him being
my boss for the day why he didn't hang
his sorry ass off that roof to earn
a buck--whether labor laws allowed
a sixteen-year-old to housepaint--brainless,
what is more to the point, all I wanted
was lunch free, cash, and my ganja pipe full.
Goats
Goats are eating my impatiens, my iris,
my comfrey, sinking hooves into my thighs,
crawling through my hair. Goats with an eye on my
corn and the other staring at the sun
are swinging on my hammock, stitching up
my jeans. Goats in my buddy's etchings have
two eyes on the same sides of their faces.
Goats have their way with me, ballet with me.
Their overtures out-Verdi Verdi.
Their concertos make marimbas out
of daffodils. When they finish with me,
they're not really finished--even our mayor
must hose off the god on his lawn--cause goats
aren't done till they've gnawed my town apart
and done the can-can with the roadhouse gang.
Election
Because I am always talking, my friend wants
me to run for president: "What harm could
you do?" I'm not charming, but she says, "O,
you, you're so sweet, the apples fall off trees
from envy." That may be, but men who have
election don't suffer from sweetness, don't
string themselves along, don't envelop their
wives, don't hug the dog nor hunt the gecko.
Men who win have the moon in one eye
and the sun in the other. Their ears are
shells from deep sea trenches. Their noses,
trowels that dig up our musty potatoes.
And their teeth, their teeth have more calcium
then mine--when they smile, one hundred flashes
can't outshine them. "So what," my friend says, "Put
on a horsehair shirt and run the desert
--grow a new soul, bright from inside out."
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