Futile Efforts (56 page)

it was you

who asked how I can make the storm

slip under the trees in the back yard, uncoiling

lashes of wicked water lapping

heaving against the window

like your older sister's tongue and breasts

wondering where all these faces

have come from.
 
Listen,

watch my finger, you can part your anguish like this,

or like this,

get some rest or diaper the baby,

go and make extra ice cubes, uncork the wine

My old man likes his nightmares

chilled, remember

like this

you can't stare into the humidifier or study the systems

of his poisoned past without being killed

Go turn the baby over, he's coughing.

The television's spitting

there's static in the attic and old photos of men

you only meet when you're dead, the lasagna's

getting as cold as grandma.
 
Move your ass for the repast

You can't use the microwave, you shake too much, lurching

to the burning of unseen venom in the air, radiation in your hair

half the time it's only a little joke,

the rest, you feel your intestines melting

crumbling to just dust

Two weeks ago your only worry

was the parking lot fumbling with a redhead's bra

and now, and now

you make a run for the camera and hold it against your head,

the baby's got to have something to remember you by

when you're dead as that.

The flash burns out

the back end of your life,

and now, and now, like this,

you'll never have a wife or kids

you won't even get to graduate

There's too much lasagna and desperation

on the chipped gold-rimmed plate.
 
You've got

to make it to the bathroom,

on your knees, quietly, and now, like this,

see your reflection

you've got a date with lusciously shaped fate.

DIVINITY AS WITNESS TO THE DEPTH

OF OUR DARKENING LOVE

Listen at the pillow when the night winds froth

with a silky, unstained remorse against the side of your face

and the dogs sweat panting under the bed

whimpering because they hear what's inside

twining inside my head

my jaws are clenched bone white at the edges

from holding back the breathless, exhausted, endless bleats

of something dying nearby in my neck

which still points to the white roses at your feet

a serpent sluicing in our shadowy breath, at your beck and call

we've always welcomed death

I'm your love, my sweet

the killer of doves, I'm all

you can feel inside, the damnation, a darkening swell

I'm a student of hell

down in the silt where the water isn't especially warm or deep

when you sewed me up and held me out again to sever

whatever was inside that needed out of me

tears no more than mountains of salt from the shores of the dead sea

no more than that what you usually weep

while listening to our ghosts on the other side of the room

who like to croon

with my hand massaging your open heart

making it beat forever

You find the guy hanging in the back yard and know it was bad

he must've dangled there for hours, holding back screams, trying

hard

not to scare the birds out of the feeder

your dog won't glance up though, she's shaking under the porch

he's got razor-wire intricately tangled under his chin, over the

elbow,

under the shins, he wanted to make sure he took his face

completely off as slowly as possible, going at that pace, taking

his time to catch every scar, eyelash, each sound wrapped inside

his ear

a
prettyboy
, really, even the ice cream man loved him

that face like every inch of your heartache out of place

it's on the ground, staring up, still trying to talk

you want to be nice, but it looks angry enough to go out

and swallow your sister's tongue

then pull itself by the nose, go out for a walk,

to the playground to watch the kids

It's Nick, for Christ's sake, the
putz
from next door

who's been banging your wife for six years, leaving his fear in your

bed

hell, your youngest boy, five-year-old Timmy, has the same red

hair

but it's never bothered you before, not even in the dark

but he's still pissing because he wanted the lightning world

like you kept it from him, by loving your lady, your son,

now it's crawling with its lips, tongue on your toe

hissing

you shake your head and take it to the park

and feed the fuck to the ducks

These curses are too complex

for such a sweet pink tongue and baby fat cat

like you

this takes skill, all your frowning

compounded into bone, another skull

to take to bed inside your head

Not everyone can live with that

You're getting the hang of it without any rope

the rabbis can smell your anxiety and sweat

the Pope, he's never been one to notice

the darkening winds, it's the hat

it cuts down his view

I've pricked my thumb and thumbed my prick

it's no simple trick what we're about to do

let them shake their heads and mutter and stutter

and give insipid smiles along the circular miles

wondering who it was who might give her diamonds,

leave poems at her feet, do the dirty dishes

who might gut her,

who hummed all the love songs to death

We step up to another stair

and another, to a different door

their grins can't hide their petty wrongs,

the smarm and bitter charms, their squealing rats

how they stare at the closed windows and the white walls

waiting for a fist to come through

Hear the thunder come tearing asunder

I'm on to you

a thumbnail groove between your eyes is deep enough

to hook and hold you on the edge

where there is no longer any kind of ledge

now you slip between sheets of their simpering defeats

and glossed over losses and screaming retreats

Her hair is falling out in handfuls

upon the softest pillows and silken scarves

he's going out for blood tests

their shingles come down in the rain

of their anguished breaths and rocked bed little deaths

your duty is done, now rest

Stick your nose in it

my syrup and sins are fanned out on the Formica table

in queens and deuces, between toast,

bacon, morning lovemaking, and tomato juice

that red leaking down your head, this black

no blacker than the other places you've been led

This rope here is where she hanged me from the chandelier

and this rickety stool is where I stood unbalanced

for over a year

hour after hour because he told her, slick, kempt,

crooning with gray nose hairs how he was the man with power

glaring at Gus who put her on the bus back home

How I've been killed for nothing

Ease the edge of the blade across the fleshy web

between thumb and forefinger

where you can still get stabbed in the kidneys and not fall down

not even linger, with the lamplight bleeding

I've been crawled over in reverse, parked on,

sat on, stepped on, rumbaed on,

where they've kneeled and snapped their fingers

under my nose, not quite remembering my name

Once I was lame, and once, perhaps,

I think, maybe, that I even had a little shame,

but the bones of confidence slowly re-knit

you get strong throwing these don't-give-a-shit

all-fired-up serpentine fits,

where your neck meets your ankles

Keep your nose out of it

Get your spine back in line

If you didn't already know it, now, see,

now, licking the stale sins

and sugar, it's time to take what's mine

This system, this house, is coming all apart

and most of it has to do with refuse, with rejection

it's amazing how it can build up in so short a time

to this kind of head, this bad form of art, this resentment

two feet high, three, six, until I can't see the girls

how they toss empty nail polish remover bottles over the dogs

flinging pearls before pigs, flipping their curls, doing little dance

without any life

looking up at the swooping black crows

chasing cherry carrion under the bed

her prom date has been lying there all this time

just how long nobody knows, but we listen

to him humming still, doing jigs in his tuxedo digs

I mention refuse and get nothing but remorse,

some sneers and rolled eyes and the tip of a tongue