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More than the execution of what we owe to whom and for how long, more than attention swallowed and returned, love might be the kindness that bathes the crust from life like scalding milk and a wire brush to thick and brutish hides.
From Filched (Dos Madres Press, 2017). Copyright © 2017 by James Tolan. Used with the permission of Holly Messitt.
Inside this grave
womb that drums
and groans
as it takes
picture
after
picture
of my spine
I hear it
seem to say
go / you go
Every head should have a body.
Every body
a soul the size
of a jukebox loaded
with tunes our bodies know without us.
My hips begin
to remember
the pleasure I was born to
my mouth to hum the songs I never knew
I didn’t know.
My body
moving alone among others moving
and singing until I am one with the other
bodies
my soul sings to.
Each honkytonk hymn making holy
what my head forgot to love.
Is that vintage? they ask.
It was my father’s, I say and think of a man for whom
that word meant only a crack about drink—
Gimme a tall one of your finest vintage!
I found it among tie pins and cufflinks in his top drawer,
filched it years before I knew the word,
knew only that I wanted something I could take from him
who knew work and the bar better than home,
something I would have never called
beautiful and ruined.
Crystal scratched, leather dry and stitching frayed.