JERSEYWORKS--POETRY
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1970 What I have seen I can be so far is a wife, a nun, a teacher or Miss America. There are no female police officers or politicians in the valley or on television. Maybe I can be a professional skater. Maybe I can be an actress. If I had half a voice I could sing but I don't have a voice so I won't be a singer - and plies bore me so I will never be a ballerina. There are no female doctors but I could be a nurse. There are no female managers managing departments in downtown department stores and not one woman owns a bakery, a pizzeria or a corner grocery store, but always it is a woman pounding the cash register keys to sell me French fries, Pepsi, and chocolate pudding in Kresge's cafeteria and always it is a woman minding someone else's baby all day - but I don't consider these options will work for me. Still I must be something. Maybe I will just say what the news is. There are no female poets that I know of yet except for Emily Dickinson, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, both dead. There are no women giving their opinions on what news is on the news except for when they gather where they won't be listened in on. None at any podium telling poetry. So maybe I will just walk up, stand up one day behind one stand for something say exactly what the news is. I don't want to yell but I will if I have to. Prick Mosquito, green-head, bee, gnat, tick. Infected we identify the insect by its prick: how long the sting lasts. Our skin is that sensitive to what has nicked it. All along our surface what makes contact leaves a mark - our eyes for instance - how they flare the instant wind throws pollen into them - powdered glass against the eyeball spewing fluid to dissolve or wash away what foreign matter presses in. That sensitive. But oh, all right. I will remember your hands and mine are almost unbelievably empty atoms. I will remind my body - touch is resistance, repelling electrons, more science than religion - touch is never really touching. I will convince myself. I will say it. Repeat it. The shoreline of my body that my skin is is no different now than when it did not know your touch upon it. I will write it on the paper in my head til I believe what I am saying. I am unaffected. We have made no contact. You have left no mark upon the shoreline of my body that my skin is and the vibrating wave motion of the ocean inside our mouths never happened and there is no God. Not Afraid He thinks I am not afraid. He wants to grow up fast but doesn't know fear goes with you, growing, moving on to more important matters. It doesn't go. What makes him believe I am rock? I am water. I have always been water except for when I have been stone. What makes him think I am strong? I am strong. Foundation? Yes. Channel? Yes. Look now I am fire. I have always been fire except for when I was two sticks. I have always been two sticks just this close to igniting. And I have always been afraid. Ash is a tiny thing to be after being. Monogamy Because I knew her well -- that greedy self who would have slipped into the dark outside to feed upon your salt - I had to kill her. Cunning. Criminal. She'd have murdered my new love with her shenanigans, slipped her tongue behind your ear, lapped you up like liquid even knowing once would never be enough to fill her up - that she'd be back - not much unlike a thirsty animal or an addict, or a married man cheating on his wife again on Tuesday for the twenty-seventh week in a row. For me to keep my promise to myself and so resist your kisses - the girl you fell in love with had to go. You thrill. You lure. Vibration. Song stuck in its riff, you dying cricket hidden in the wall screaming into my ear, you alien out there in another's world - life goes on without you and as mother said I would I've half-way healed. You hook beneath the bait, well-hidden, bait I took and took and tore away from then returned to take again, just as the trout swims back, lacerates its mouth. Does the trout feel it’s starving? I wonder when my bones press against my skin. When inside I ache for something other than the underside of myself. Does the moth throb for light? I wonder when, half-coming out of my skin, I despise my longing. More than the absence of you here to touch me. I hate the truth late at night when denied I know desire owns me as fire owns the moth. As death owns the body from the moment the body begins. As angels own God. Or a dog owns the hand of who feeds it. These bodies are not ours to own. The lesson is always the lesson. I must fight to belong to myself. I must harden myself to be saved, maybe starve. Kill the starry-eyed girl. I know. I know. I must forget your face brought to joy. | |
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