It came about at noon one day
at noon I decided to stop breathing;
scarcely had I chose before a rustle stirred
and the glitters melted on every thigh round the table.
I sat witnessing you, witnessing my hand.
I was only reaching for the jug, for the creamer,
but limbs are tender, eyes are foggy at this time
all golden lights on the tablecloth lie on the white hour,
noontime in the morning. I must have touched, at morningtime, you,
We must have seemed creamers to each other, true, so that we touched,
across the table, on the table, far from the flowers or the vase,
the two separate, the glass and leaf marriage (product of Sweden).
scarcely had I chose before a rustle stirred, a shudder shook,
every window rattled and the wind picking up, my boss
calling calling me even though I was unreachable,
silly dame I was in white noontime space, oh silly dame,
I had no sense of touch, silly me, I had volunteered my breath.
I breathed back into service, I drank my coffee black.

Down down the seaside hillock holds pebbles in the sweet indentations

Made by sparrows fast on the cliffs, and scooping in the dark

With my brown hands I pick up the rocks and hold them,

Ask all over them with my eyes—so soft soft.

They hum of the sea and smell like mushrooms.

I make small grooves and slide what I scraped away from beneath my nails,

I make lovers’ etchings in the stones, I make transfer-marks,

Carve alphabets, I throw them away.

I never place them back in their nests, but see! if they skip skip

Down down the seaside hillock to the waves,

I will have the luck thunder down down on me,

Heavy rocks, they never make it. They never do.

Maybe their aerodynamics are ruined,

Lovers’ etchings.

They sink and roll down and catch tight in another cave, this one in the grass,

This one made by the small bodies of some children.

They count the clouds in the sky while looking up up up,

The birds’ forms, and small planes, and they think of things, very idle,

Very idle, like pudding on a plate, sitting in its mess,

And like puddings these children melt in the grass,

Twisting because of the rocks under their backs,
Like the clouds they try try try try try to be born.

There was a cycle amid the alabaster oaks,

Wide rings like halos drawn in the skulls—

I meant snows—

Drifting through the glade on doe’s feet,

Getting stuck between squirrels’ toes.

This was the cycle that ran its course

Like an energy vein seamless threading in and out,

Multiplying the framework and making new stitching.

The old became the new; an Egyptian used the oaks to make a vase for his king,

Which filled with dust, which was lightless,

And settled to the ground.

Around, around the cycle flew,

curmudgeonly growings, little timid happenings,

Whispers of rabbits’ tongues and stowed corn that someone forgot

Got unburied when the skulls started to melt.

blaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Nihilism for the Modern Homemaker

I am pretty much nihilistic;
tea never stays hot once poured,
and its steam causes the ceiling to mold.
The maintenance of metaphors is tiresome;
why do laundry when clothes only get dirty again?
The same could be said of myself I think.
What point is there to bathing a boy who runs away
for the purpose of getting filthy again?
I live for others to exact labor on me;
the dishes pile up in the sink, the husband has affairs,
baking soda and vinegar never get another woman out
of the laundry that runs away to a sordid motel room,
and no detergent cuts the grease, the smoke, the smell of my boy
coming home late; sometimes bile and blood never wash out.
The labor they exact on me is hard; my hands are scabbed and dry;
but why do I work anyway?
I can sweep, but the dust will fall in the same pattern, halos and wings
making rings where I lay as a child.
I can mop, but the mud and caked dirt and broken dishes will come back the next day.
I can bandage my finger, but next meal will cut me apart again,
tear me up into little bitty pieces and throw me down the drain.
But the labor I exact on myself is worse: it is the hard work of dreaming
and it drives me mad.

You say there was this bad time, during the war.

“During the war.” Am I expected to know what that means?

To me the war was a time where I had plastic toys,

danced them in sardine tins,

and then cried at night on the carpet, not because I was sad,

and not because I chose the carpet to cry on,

but only because I was a baby, and we cry a lot, wherever we can.

The war looks like those silly signs you make at me through the window.

Except, from what I know about war,

the window would be smeared in blood and you would make toothless signs

with a blown out shell of a head.

Everything I know about war comes from sardine tins,

and war bond advertising on Saturday morning cartoons.

Gosh I hate sardines, but they’re good for me,

and you make me eat them.

You say when Dad went away,

that was during the war,

that was a bad time,

and all those are empty to me. Sort of like the ugly socks grandmother bought me, and I never ever wear.

I’m a boy and I don’t like elephants or pink things.

And I don’t like sardines.

But you said Dad was a no-good rascal,

and that the house smiles so wide it creaks now that he’s gone,

which I guess explains why everything is falling apart,

why you never make sandwiches any more,

why the roof leaks and rats are everywhere,

and why,

when you think I’m not listening,

you complain to the insurance agent that things have gone to Hell in a handbasket.

That still doesn’t explain why the Devil does groceries dressed like a girl.

Apostrophe at 1 a.m.

Night,

fuck you!

You’re a slimy whore, fuck you!
You are never a good night.

You never come and make me want sleep. I have never seen the sun go down and thought rest. Always has the sun set, and I’ve thought of roadsides, no traffic, and raccoons. So leave off, Night, and stay your coming, at least until morning.

So fuck you,

promiscuous!

The filtered light, the sleight, the brush you have at th’hour of disaster, so fuck off.

If you’re so hungry, feed yourself!

You feed yourself; you grow wanton things in smarmy fields, at night. It’s sick how you grow teeth to lie through. Grow, reap, bake. I’m your wheat taken my seed taken grown in moon taken from feeding streams taken, scythed, taken,

crushed

rolled

kneaded my palms, taken off,

baked off,

fuck off you refuse to.

A culinary whore, a mind of stars, purpleeyedwhereslothbityour right check and drew no blood.

Hey, Night,

you’re a bastard child and loveless to boot.

Fuck, Night, you make me want you.

Yellow roadsides with no traffic and a deer someone hit and dragged over to the grass

I am not chained Night, I don’t have to itch my eyes at night. Tonight like all nights, I’ve gone to you, Night.

Why make me do it?

Why give me a rusted saw to fix my own escape?

Drift me down to the people who dance in you,

Make me alone! I want to dance with them,

FUCK NIGHT. SLUTTISH TIME,

And I want your rosy cousin;

your pallor makes me apprehensive;

your sounds are reticent, so you are a chamber

where my sounds echo, my joys louder, woes rebounding.

Night, go soft away, please!

Silver lights tattooing my fleshly cosmos, away!

Bring the sun, bring her shy graffiti through the curtain,

let her play.

I try tapping in cut-time, and then cauterizing it,

like tossing a bus off a bridge full of people at 9 a.m.

making a little splash in the bay, and

some rusty buoy rocks out the tale a few miles off. 

tossed at 9, precipitated downwards,

at 9 a.m.

that’s such a nice and wholesome hour

9 a.m.

Nine people shoved in a corner. It’s 1 a.m. down the alley and very yellow on the bricks. Finches lark out of the shadows, rats, cats, submariney sounds in the plumbing. Scrabbles, boinks,

drip

drip

I’m speaking and you can’t hear me.