Futile Efforts (57 page)

I'm going to kick in her mirror

That'll douse her fire and turn up the fear

wondering if her eyebrows are too long, the hair

in order, lips pink enough

the prom date is still waiting, of course,

his meat, as you'd expect, if you cared

is drying out and getting way too tough

I'm making a stand, I think

I'm not taking the bastard to the corner

Girls, you both, take a turn carrying the plastic bags

this delicate fragrance grows too huge

The heaped terrors on this languished side of the room

will forever be mine, along with that stink

no matter how hard you cry or large you loom

or sit in the corner and growl and stew

I've got a river of hellfire coming through

and it smells a lot sweeter than you

You're still sticking your head in my closets

studying the quality of dust, the texture of ash

the pools of blood, wondering if they're mine

or not

some are, believe me, some are

but you'd better check way in the back

as if you could pack the darkness and torn paper,

clinging spirits and fading children

and re-comprise the promise of my whispers and whimpers

and all that I lack

You don't get it yet that the locks on that box

are meant to keep me inside

more than to keep you here

There are murderers holding their breath

patiently waiting for you to walk by in the wind,

to giggle instead of whine,

to put a finger to another's lips

rather than staggering past in fear

there, you can see

sinners sleeping themselves to death,

a sort of sin no longer heard of

You can't awaken one without taking them all home

to cuddle in the dark, if you must

and you must

bearing a new hideous guilt, not quite mine but with my face

each beautiful line and luscious curve just

another failure and more raw back-beating

and those stilted words of disgrace

you can't find me there anymore

or there or here or over there

especially there, anymore

opening the closet is opening the coffin

from one end to the other the martyrs of myself

have died for us

up and down in your face, in your lust

atop the breaking rock

catching you off guard

where divine intervention means taking

a dull blade to your prayers and twisting hard

There have been two mercy killings this week

my guilt and my pride, both leering just a little

lying sideways in glass jars settled side by side

My sister knew no vowels, they said her brain was wet

my cousins with no tongues, my brother so ugly

he has to run and hide, his eyes too hard

my sister's hanging bottom lip

covered with spittle, my mother

patient and more than willing to speak

the home with no rooms, the back without a spine

most of the books have been read

and there are still more jars on the shelves, too many to fill

with pity, with rage, with sorrow, with my good intent

with my fear

with the small pile of flower petals I had to sweep

out of the corners of the yard

If only I could have seen my gray hairs at eight

and known who to let pass, whose hand to shake,

and just who it was I was going to hate

when the ice wouldn't be enough to cool my forehead

I've been in the ring too long, the bull is dull

my hands are weak, there's no need for a sword

its eyes are glazed, it's down on its knees

and can't be raised

There's a nice breeze here swirling everybody

around and around

and around like wedding dresses,

like the whirling and dried

but still dancing, driven dead

You can't stop me this time, I'm taking the bull's ear

between my teeth, and getting the hell out of hell

out of here

IN AN EFFORT TO REMOVE THE SEVENTH SIN

FROM MY FIFTH RIB

A stairway seen through the trees, a hushed voice

too far out of the way to hear clearly,

whispering for me to come on up, so soft beneath

the dog howls, laughter, and screeching tires

already loud in the breeze, cherry blossoms sailing

among the scent, I'm moving towards the screen door

as fast and fluid as my merciless hopes and wants

and those knives in the weeds, the way my fists look underwater

the hunt is on in the dark, she's wavering in the night

now redheaded, now brunette, skipping from one to another

on the points of my sharpest needs,

with agony lips

drawn against my chest, hinges of my jaw firmly set

blonde now, and just a little sunburned,

with scraped knees

tough to keep watching her prance and shift this way

as if the dying light bulb on a string in the basement

had been slapped to set the world and shadows swinging

my hand on your ass rings louder than midnight church bells

don't you get it yet, I've faced up to my defeats

and made it out through the other side

of failure and sin and missed chances,

dragging myself forward,

sometimes even pirouetting through all this hell

I'm not here anymore

and neither are you despite the perfume,

back it on up and shut the goddamned door

I've taken all I'm about to from that smile

if I say take it off, then you'd better scrape it away

and when you dip beneath the dripping kitchen faucet,

swing your hair like this over my wrist, like that,

there's a whirlwind sowed inside my load

spitfire eyes too good for what's coming

hands the size of second-rate redemption

bend backwards into the silver of my seed

when these ghosts dance with me, I lead

They say that on the eighteenth floor of the nuthatch, an old

woman

sits in her filth and talks into her own scars

and wrinkles and gutted breaths,

her fingertips cleaved off so she could get by without any feeling

calling the names of seven dead children,

lobotomized husband, murdered mother

her face sculpted and split into thin tracks the shape

of nails' edges, the width of heartbreak

They have to hold her down at night

before she levitates on a wave of remorse and rape

her spine cracking with tangled tragedies

heaving her up to the ceiling

Who slid onto the train tracks? who caught it

in the ribs walking home from THE MAGIC FLUTE?
 
which

house went up with three starving retarded kids

in their pink beds, taking time with the flames,

smoothing fire in their hair,

spreading it onto soft cheeks?
 
They've torn veins

out of her legs and connected them in her brain.

She's in the rafters

and the attendants shriek with her, it's sort of fun

really, all the wickedness in the world

layered in her bloomers, stuffed under her eyes

the way she reeks, I can smell it down here

six streets over, where I'm changing a tire

listening to the kids cry, sitting

before their broken games, the toilets backing up,

steak gone bad, dog chewing my shoe

and shitting on the kitchen floor

they've turned off the phone again

Joggers found a pair of hands in a drainage ditch

right next door

Living all of this and looking up to an asylum shadow

where she hovers and her toes tap the top of the window,

thinking only, oh

oh yes,

oh, you lucky bitch

This is why the maniacs come out to play

because the juice has been drained off in the cells

of our dirty brain pans

the knocking at the windows has ended

the morning decrees there's to be no rematch

Clouds no longer form the faces of the boys

who broke your lunchbox

she's on the roof wrestling with screeching leaves

she's got hearts on her sleeve, she's got a hedgerow of scattered

torsos

across her precious toes

she's yawping about how badly the communion tastes

how the stations of the cross are gliding around the room,

who's showing mercy, who clings to a cat-o'-nine-tails,

whose throat bleeds

You talk of knives and sultry ex-wives

and the effects of your father's coffin upon your childhood

as if you've got one behind your back right now,

a switch blade date, a hated woman on her knees,

your dead Dad's rage pouring into your ass

How about we do this?

Let's check and see how much of the moon glints in your blade

and how much shines in my eye

and we'll fill this parking lot sewer drain with it needs