Find and share the perfect poems.
That Mississippi chicken shack. That initial-scarred tabletop, that tiny little dance floor to the left of the band. That kiosk at the mall selling caramels and kitsch. That tollbooth with its white-plastic-gloved worker handing you your change. That phone booth with the receiver ripped out. That dressing room in the fetish boutique, those curtains and mirrors. That funhouse, that horror, that soundtrack of screams. That putti-filled heaven raining gilt from the ceiling. That haven for truckers, that bottomless cup. That biome. That wilderness preserve. That landing strip with no runway lights where you are aiming your plane, imagining a voice in the tower, imagining a tower.
for Aya at fifteen Damp-haired from the bath, you drape yourself upside down across the sofa, reading, one hand idly sunk into a bowl of crackers, goldfish with smiles stamped on. I think they are growing gills, swimming up the sweet air to reach you. Small girl, my slim miracle, they multiply. In the black hours when I lie sleepless, near drowning, dread-heavy, your face is the bright lure I look for, love's hook piercing me, hauling me cleanly up.
In this shallow creek they flop and writhe forward as the dead float back toward them. Oh, I know what I should say: fierce burning in the body as her eggs burst free, milky cloud of sperm as he quickens them. I should stand on the bridge with my camera, frame the white froth of rapids where one arcs up for an instant in its final grace. But I have to go down among the rocks the glacier left and squat at the edge of the water where a stinking pile of them lies, where one crow balances and sinks its beak into a gelid eye. I have to study the small holes gouged into their skin, their useless gills, their gowns of black flies. I can't make them sing. I want to, but all they do is open their mouths a little wider so the water pours in until I feel like I'm drowning. On the bridge the tour bus waits and someone waves, and calls down It's time, and the current keeps lifting dirt from the bottom to cover the eggs.
I want a red dress. I want it flimsy and cheap, I want it too tight, I want to wear it until someone tears it off me. I want it sleeveless and backless, this dress, so no one has to guess what's underneath. I want to walk down the street past Thrifty's and the hardware store with all those keys glittering in the window, past Mr. and Mrs. Wong selling day-old donuts in their café, past the Guerra brothers slinging pigs from the truck and onto the dolly, hoisting the slick snouts over their shoulders. I want to walk like I'm the only woman on earth and I can have my pick. I want that red dress bad. I want it to confirm your worst fears about me, to show you how little I care about you or anything except what I want. When I find it, I'll pull that garment from its hanger like I'm choosing a body to carry me into this world, through the birth-cries and the love-cries too, and I'll wear it like bones, like skin, it'll be the goddamned dress they bury me in.
You are not beautiful, exactly. You are beautiful, inexactly. You let a weed grow by the mulberry and a mulberry grow by the house. So close, in the personal quiet of a windy night, it brushes the wall and sweeps away the day till we sleep. A child said it, and it seemed true: "Things that are lost are all equal." But it isn't true. If I lost you, the air wouldn't move, nor the tree grow. Someone would pull the weed, my flower. The quiet wouldn't be yours. If I lost you, I'd have to ask the grass to let me sleep.