Text Messages

Jordan Davis

A wave of love for you just knocked me off my chair

I will love you and love you

I will reach out my hand to you in the noise of carhorns and merengue and pull you close by the waist

I will call you my museum of everything always

I will call you MDMA

I love you ecstatic exalted sublime

I wish you were here—there’s an enormous cloud sitting off in the distance

It’s a beautiful walk from there to my place

I’m buzzing but the buzzer may not be working

There’s a raccoon rearing on hind legs twitching its nose from behind a short fence

Let me stew you some tomatoes

As long as I keep moving the overtones don’t jackhammer my skull

I am waiting for something very very good

My phone is like, what, I’m a phone

How to Be a Lawyer

My father taught me how to play the beer bottle. It was Schlitz, and I was three or four. "You tuck your lower lip under, then blow air over the top of the bottle." I produced a tone, and we laughed. He paused. "You can make a different sound if there's less in the bottle," he said, motioning for me to take a sip. I did, then blew another note. We laughed again.

"Do you want to learn something else? Here's how to be a lawyer. Raise one eyebrow." I did so. "Good. Now hold it for a few seconds, turn toward the jury, and say 'I see.'"

Jordan Davis

2013

The Man Who Rode the Mule Around the World

The please freak
And the likeness monster
Follow the pretend family
On their journey alone
Around the room.

In the middle of the night
Comes the terrifying cry—
"How may I help you"

The tree looks down
And shakes its head.

Under separate cover
Of the night, love
Stalks the streets.

The audit committee
Goes into executive session.

In a faraway bedroom,
A baby smiles.

Jordan Davis

2012

Toothpaste Kids Sunburn

I tell you I will not make any more raids,
The elusive going-elsewhere motherboard 

An electrical sound marking stretches 
Afternoon is carving into the wood of us,

That’s our modern way of saline allegory—
To make gods of times of day. I won't 

Cooperate with this love that steals itself 
Into a brand name, preferring to abandon 

Like feathers or a rocket stage the moves 
Traffic up till now couldn’t touch. That’s me,

That warm breath dying on the neck,
The only chain they couldn’t save in the fire 

Everybody but the Buddha called  
A day at the beach.

Jordan Davis

2011

Poems

Text Messages

More by this poet

How to Be a Lawyer

The Man Who Rode the Mule Around the World

Toothpaste Kids Sunburn

Poems

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Text Messages

More by this poet

How to Be a Lawyer

The Man Who Rode the Mule Around the World

Toothpaste Kids Sunburn

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