The Best American Poetry 2015 (11 page)

In the dark, my mind's night, I go back

to your work-calloused hands, your body

and the memory of fields I no longer see.

Cheek wad of chew tobacco,

Skoal-tin ring in the back pocket

of threadbare jeans, knees

worn through entirely. How to name you:

farmhand, Kentucky boy, lover.

The one who taught me to bear

the back-throat burn of bourbon.

Straight, no chaser, a joke in our bed,

but I stopped laughing; all those empty bottles,

kitchen counters covered with beer cans

and broken glasses. To realize you drank

so you could face me the morning after,

the only way to choke down rage at the body

sleeping beside you. What did I know

of your father's backhand or the pine casket

he threatened to put you in? Only now,

miles and years away, do I wince at the jokes:

white trash, farmer's tan, good ole boy.

And now, alone, I see your face

at the bottom of my shot glass

before my own comes through.

from
Poetry Daily

In a shop of bloat and blown glass,

I pry an iridescent green beetle alive

from my ear and chase a dwindled trail

paved dire with coins towards three skulls

enclosed in a box of Olympia beer. Pale

grass: vitiligo thrust from the tract

of his scalp, now mine. Your voice,

a sforzando of light as it strikes the rock-

ridge hung above the dwellings.

Or, your voice, a grim notation of the sweep

between us. All night along with you

our sons respire. I fever through memory.

The world that survives me but a dangerous place.

from
Alaska Quarterly Review

I'll tell you up front: She was fine—although

she left in an ambulance because

I called 9-1-1

and what else can you do

when they've come for you

with their sirens and lights

and you're young and polite

except get into their ambulance

and pretend to smile?

“Thanks,” she said to me

before they closed her up. (They

even tucked

her bike in there. Not

one bent spoke on either tire.) But I

was shaking and sobbing too hard to say good-bye.

I imagine her telling her friends later, “It

hardly grazed me, but

this lady who saw it went crazy . . .”

I did. I was

molecular, while

even the driver who hit her did

little more than roll his eyes, while

a trucker stuck at the intersection, wolfing

down a swan

sandwich behind the wheel, sighed. Some-

one touched me on the shoulder

and asked, “Are you all right?”

(Over

in ten seconds. She

stood, all

blonde, shook

her wings like a little cough.)

“Are you

okay?” someone else asked me. Uneasily. As if

overhearing my heartbeat

and embarrassed for me

that I was made

of such gushing meat

in the middle of the day

on a quiet street.

“They should have put
her

in the ambulance, not me.”

Laughter.

Shit happens.

To be young.

To shrug it off:

But, ah, sweet

thing, take

pity. One

day you too may be

an accumulation

of regrets, catastrophes.

A clay animation

of Psalm 73 (
But

as for me, my feet . . .
). No. It will be

Psalm 48:
They

saw it
,

and so they marveled; they

were troubled, and hasted away.
Today

you don't remember the way

you called my name, so

desperately, a thousand times, tearing

your hair, and your clothes on the floor, and

the nurse who denied your morphine

so that you had to die that morning

under a single sheet

without me, in

agony, but

this time I was beside you.

I waited, and I saved you.

I was there.

from
Post Road

i. good reality
TV

a couple wanted to be -to-be and
TV
wants the couple-to-be

to be on
TV
. the people from
TV
believe we'd be good
TV

because we had wanted to be -to-be and failed and now might.

to be good at
TV
make like
TV
isn't. make like living in our living room

and the
TV
crew isn't there and the boom isn't there

saving the woman from
TV
's voice that won't be there

saying
tell us about the miscarriage.
in the teeming evening

and some dog barking at all we cannot hear.

ii. would you be willing to be on
TV
?

people in their house on
TV
are ghosts haunting a house haunting houses.

pregnant women in their houses on
TV
are haunted houses haunting a house haunting houses.

our living room a set set for us ghosts to tell ghost stories on us.

would you be -to-be on
TV
?

to be the we we weren't to be and the we we're-to-be to be on
TV
.

the pregnant woman agrees to being a haunted house

haunting flickering houses. yes ok yeah yes.

iii. forms

in the waiting room for the doctor to
TV
the pregnant woman's insides

out on a little
TV
on
TV
. filling a form on
TV
is to flesh into words

on a sheet that fills up with you. yes yes and turn to the receptionist

only to turn back to a ghost waiting to be officially haunted yes.

a magazine riffles itself on
TV
; loud pages, a startled parrot

calls your name then alighting on magazines

and waddle the hall you -to-be and the
TV
crew that isn't going to be there

on
TV
and the doctor and you are looking at her little
TV
on
TV
the doctor

says
see? there they are.
ghosts sound themselves out to flicker on the little
TV
.

there they go
to the pregnant woman scared to be such good
TV
.

iv. cut

to one-more-time-from-the-top yourself

is to ta-daaaaa breathing. the curtain drops, plush guillotine.

would you talk about the miscarriage one more time?
ta-daaaaa

v. all the little people out there

after she was a haunted house before we haunted us for
TV
then

the pregnant woman watched
TV
. vomit on her teeth like sequins.

our
TV
stayed pregnant with the people from
TV
's
TV
show

pregnant with haunted houses wailing then smiling up into our living room.

it helps
she said of the people from
TV
's
TV
show so
yes
then to
TV
to help,

she said, the haunted houses in the living rooms we said
yes
to help

thousands of wailing houses.

vi. only with some effort

the best ghosts trust they're not dead. no

no the best ghosts don't know how not to be alive.

like being good at
TV
.

inside
the pregnant woman, the -to-be of the family-who-failed-

but-now-might-be-to-be were good
TV
.

but the we-who-failed butterfingered and stuttered,

held our hands like we just got them.

we've been trying so long
we said
we can't believe it this is finally happening.

vii. scheduled c-section: reality
TV

and they're born made of meats on
TV
!

the doctor voilàs them from the woman's red guts

into the little punch bowls.

the new mother says
I want to see them my babies!

the doctor shoves the new mother's guts back, express lane grocer.

the demure camera good
TV
s up two meat babies into wailing ghosts.

off, the new mother's blood like spilled nail polish.

viii. ghost story

did you know about dogs and ghosts? one barking at one's nothing?

ix. the miscarriage: exposition for reality
TV

it helps
to be on
TV
. we want to be good on
TV
. ok yes.

to help we want to be good
TV
. yeah yes.

please tell me about the miscarriage.

the woman from
TV
wants good
TV
and
something specific that gets you right

in the tear to the eye
to milk the pregnant woman's breasts heavy with—.

good, we talk about the dead one on
TV
.

it was horrible, the blood was everywhere that morning
a dog barks.

one-more-time-from-the-top.
it was horrible, the blood was everywher
rrrr

doggone dog goes on. on to take three and
it was horri
BOOM

in the boom goes the barking and bad
TV
! bad
TV
! we want to help

being good
TV
please tell me about the miscarriage

one more time
it was

x. after the c-section was more like

the doctor shoving the new mother's guts in, jilted lover packing a duffel.

xi. talking about the miscarriage: behind the scenes

please tell me about the miscarriage

please tell me about the miscarriage

please tell me about the miscarriage

please tell me about the miscarriage

the fifth take and
it was horrible
, that's all.

they call them takes, again we're robbed.

xii.

did it help watching a house fill with haunting every room