Jerry
McGuire
BURRITO
VALENTINE
for Paige
DeShong
I cannot truly
hold you to my heart—
that heated place
where all
desires melt
together—
Nor press my
face upon your breast—
Something might
stick,
pull
apart in shreds
In fact to hold
or not to hold
you
that is a
question
that twists my
stomach
like pretzels
To take you in
my hand
or in my mouth,
or leave
you there to
sweat it out
while I ready
knife and fork,
forks and
knives—
to think you
might
unwrap
yourself, expose
your inner
bean, your
hidden beef, to
hear
you beg for
your pathetic life in which
the only real
event
to speak of is this
hungry
moment, all
pretensions dropped,
I grab and put
you right where you belong,
inside me, in
among my own
untasty
secrets—
this is a
consuming
doubt that
gnaws me deep.
I have you now.
I have a bowl
of sauce.
I have you yet.
Just one quick
feel,
before we
start, of this
cool beer.
Somehow,
we both begin
to sweat.
They finally
killed the redeyed greenfaced goldtoothed devil
with a
chicken-bomb, first stuffing
the fat hen
with enough threepenny nails
to board an
outhouse, then stopping her hole
with a nitro
suppository. The devil
never suspected
that this wobbly creature,
her beak giving
nothing away by way
of smile or
frown, could rupture the wall
between our
world and his and stop his constant fucking with us.
Dim as a pigeon
but without a peep, she seemed to be dancing,
shaking a
tailfeather in his general direction.
As she went to
pieces the sky cried out,
its pretty blue
face now pocked with liver and egg,
and the devil,
just an empty space now,
kept on smiling
out of his fargone eyes
"Will we ever
see, ever even think of each other again?
This night, this
moment: impossible to feel it all." (Li Po)
Cold and clear, the nights now
a net of stars hung in blue-black water
through which the huge,
ancient fish are moving.
My father is dying. He knows
this, but doesn't understand it yet. The leaves
of the five hundred soft- and hardwoods
on the hill
have had their strange and
wonderful days, red and silver, orange and gold.
The only ones left now are
crisp, pale brown,
and shuffle the wind all night
in their frightening game of cards.
What is happening now is small
and quiet, yet sharp as the edges of that wind:
too sharp to deny, too
persistent to turn off.
I've come to stand alone,
still as these old vines, still as the stars, and listen,
in this frozen instant hearing
a car purr two dirt roads over,
while the creek down the hill
precisely ripples to itself,
the birds have all gone quiet,
and now, a mile away, two farmhouses down,
one disconsolate dog tied on
his run howls at these stars
that mean so much to both of
us, and another across the creek
replies as if she were his
dark ink soaked through this darker page,
bled clean to the other side
where it is read
by an eye, the great reverse
of ours, which knows how to read these things.
I wish, now that those howls
have come and gone,
that I could howl myself, make
myself their brother and their blood.
But I stand here only my
father's son, listening in his garden
to the careful recitation of
the night, my hand full of his little blue moon grapes,
nearly frozen and slightly
sour. I steal one handful,
one mouthful of cold juice
from the crop from which he'll make
his last batch of slightly
sweet, slightly sour wine.
Christmas night, 1997
for Joe and Gail Andriano
1
There were in the first days three moons, who were sisters. One sister was blind. She saw by being perfectly quiet and letting others describe everything to her. Another sister was deaf. She heard with her fingers, which were the winds that she ran over the surface of the world. The third sister was dumb. She spoke by opening her eye so wide, everything poured out of her like light. One day the sisters argued over their lover, the sun. But as two of them did not speak, and one did not hear, they never new it. And that is how our fathers learned to live.
2
One day in the first days two
of our fathers met by a pond, where both had come to find something to eat.
They decided that they would eat frogs. They talked together and smoked,
because they had never eaten a frog and did not see one. While they waited,
some deer came to the pond and had a drink. One said to the other, Is that a
frog? and the other said, No, that is a deer. So they paid no
attention, because they wanted to eat frogs. Later, a bear came, very close by,
and snatched a fish and ate it. Is this one a frog? asked one of our
fathers, and the other said, No, this one is a bear. So the two still
waited to see if some frogs might come. A pair of mink came, slid into the
water, and came out with crawfish in their mouths. The two kept talking. No,
said one, these are minks, and those are crawfish. Finally, the sun set
and they made a fire. Then a frog came along, as big as a buffalo, and said to
our fathers, Why are you sitting here beside my pond? Don't you have a fire
in your own homes? The two of them, thinking the frog would eat them, said
that they had come to see the Great Frog and to bring him a gift. What is
this gift? asked the frog, because he thought he might take it. Oh,
they said, we put it in the pond already. It is a tub of honey with nuts and
berries in it. Hearing this, the frog jumped in the pond and dove down
looking for his present. But because it was not there, he never came out of the
pond again, and the water shrunk him until now all frogs are small. Meanwhile,
our two fathers saw that they were very lucky, so they did a dance around the
fire until it burned out. They went to sleep, and when they woke up, they saw
that waiting and talking and smoking together had made them exactly the same. Well,
they said, all right, then. Let us do the same today. And that is
how our fathers came to live together in one place.
3
Squirrel, Fox, Eagle, Coyote,
and Rat called a meeting in the first days to talk about Man. Squirrel said, He
is a fool. He can't climb at all. Instead of saving his acorns in a
tree, he eats them all at once, then goes hungry all winter. I think we
should leave him to his own kind and never talk to him. Fox spoke up then. I
agree, he said, and then he ate Squirrel up on the spot. Yes, said
Fox, Man is a fool. He is afraid of the dark, so he's a terrible
hunter. Big as he is, he is slow of foot, weak of eye, and dull of
brain. He's dangerous in close quarters, but we can easily avoid him,
and that is what we should do. Just then Eagle dove from his perch, killed
Fox, and ate him on the spot. You are so right, he said, Man is a
fool. He makes fires, weapons, and tools, yet has no imagination. When
he tells stories he scares himself and does not understand them. He is not
noble, because he cannot think himself noble. Noble! exclaimed
Coyote, and bit Eagle's head off and ate him on the spot. You are so right!
Even worse, he changes his mind. When Partridge sits sleeping on a rock
he thinks, How beautiful Partridge looks, sleeping there, and Partridge wakes
and flies away, while Man's children go hungry. He goes to fish and
stares at the moon while the fish eat his bait. And then he looked at Rat
and thought he would eat him, too. But when he pounced Rat jumped back, and Coyote
fell in a pit where Rat had been standing. Coyote looked up, and Rat and Man
were standing there. That's right, they said together, and they both
urinated on Coyote. But if Rats and Men work together, we will kill all the
other animals. And that is what our fathers have learned to do.
The circus must be in town, for tonight there's a strong animal
smell in the air, and strange sounds, like crying and laughing, and also the
sense that tonight the village's sons will run away, and all the daughters
after them. We look around and see that yes, the house tonight is full of
clowns, their pale faces covering up the strain, their bright noses flashing
it, their big, tired feet obstructing all the aisles like flung matchsticks. At
first it seems a shame to us that he can't see them, their ragmops of bad hair,
their snaggletoothed false smiles, their ostentatious awful clothes, but then
we see he's tricked us once again—somehow he knows! and now there is this
silent scene of recognition as all around the room a mesh of quiet hearts falls
into one dark rhythm. They all turn to face him, and he them, like lonesome
wolves around the leader of their pack, resting on their cushioned haunches,
all their noses arced to the same degree, all souls rising as one: the clowns
all howl, they howl as painted men and women might, and the mime, their leader,
not allowed to voice his pain among the general sadness, has never looked so
sad.
From the end of the earth will I cry unto
thee, when my heart is overwhelmed. Peter Abelard
. . . were more and less at
once, can help it. . . . broken, then pulled together as a dawning. . . . all
them handle up the line, buckets over-topping, the green flames aghast, appall
the windows, many gleeful faces beaming more than. . . . I make the messages,
cowered slightly where the night ended in ruin. . . . what does the philosopher
want today, said the clerk. . . . looked, said nothing, revealed nothing, took
it in her hand, roughly pulled then eased back and glided it here, there, as if
there were holy places to be met with only in this grasp, while he wondered: is
this all it takes? is this what it means? this is what we were made for? . . .
many mirrors darkling. . . . got early up, sawed the ends off, polished before
breakfast, before the rest could see them, aimed at his head where he slept,
went "poof! poof!" . . . you the answer, then, and does that pain you
so? . . . helped him into bed, his cold toes white, already dead: but thought
only on her all the while, when she'd call. . . . and hurried to the window
when they heard the shot; the day was not dreary, either, even made them laugh
a little. . . . You're a greening, she said, the sky warps around you when you
get the sniffles, but held him, too, in her arms long after the need was made
quiet. . . . And her mother laid there, the blood drained out of her, the wax
bringing her face back into the shape it bore during the years before the hard
carryings and birthings, the kettle whistled, the cat went flying, a truck
smutted by with a sour muffler, the phone rang, the temperature dropped another
tenth of a degree, a helicopter on the embattled periphery sputtered for a
second, dropped a couple of yards in the air, then recovered itself and went on
nicely about its terrible affairs. . . . in the park, held his gutted prey,
watching them as they tried to keep their eyes on the ball. . . . for the third
time, then took a deep breath of water and smiled. . . . wagging, as if for the
first time, a puppy, the child's tiny hand—what can that brittle smallness
signify to this stolid ancient Labrador?—the light that passed between them,
the screech of these alien species' sudden collapses into one another's worlds,
more than simple friendship, more than illumination, more than infinite
possibility, more than love . . .
if ants, if bees
then all be aggregate
in complex now and never
ever any other
all one all one all
deployed, already mapped
the center nowhere, everywhere
a movement of parts, all
formic
all particulars multiplied
by three, by six, by two
feelers
if ants, if bees
the heart does not
assign itself, the route
a code, even
the eye compounded
and death from hunger does not
appall, the travesties of sex
do not amuse, will that tongue
taste
if loosed would scandalize
and hurt, if torn would sing
if ants if bees
the more not merrier
the less not more, everything
exact, even
the dancing strict
some fat thing at the center
being fed, her days alike
alike
devour excrete and spill of
progeny
each spill identical
symmetrical or else—
what this new and wicked I?
and she the star
ever over where the edges
spill
the green the silver
intricate inflamed
and turning always still
turned incensed palpable
altogether here once and ever
slow empties down pauses is
full
smiles its mouth a picture as
to reassure
the next as new as one as to
seem April
blow cold then cool then warm
in wonder
DREAM GIRL
The things that mattered to
the little girl
were angels, fuzzy creatures,
anyone on crutches
or hurt in her heart, the big
boys on the corner,
and Mr. Science after the
Karate Kadettes. So nobody
was much surprised to see her
start
sleeping all the day and
night, only waking for a little
sip of mock tea with mock
lemon, Super Booster Sandwiches,
and Karate Kadette Krackers
with jam on the side.
No one was surprised, but some
were worried
that she smiled herself to
sleep and slept on smiling,
then grumbled like a tiny
polar bear the minute
they managed to tease her up
for lunch. Then one day
she started waking up all by
herself, and seemed
to be a normal little girl
again. Except that now
she started ceaselessly
reciting all her dreams,
ditzy dreams of childhood
where the big green crow
dances with daddy while the
piggies make supper
for everyone and somehow
blowing mounds of snow
miraculously turn to coconut
and almond,
all the soft warm whiteness
wrapped in creamy brown.
She'd look you in the eyes and
say, The Donut Pumpkin
came today. It burped. It swam
like in the navy, only
nobody made it come home and
make its bed. It didn't make me
sad, either! It had a baby of its
own, looked just like Mommy.
You might feel compelled to
stroke her then, just down
her head, but then she'd jump
like you'd shocked her:
I always said, don't let anybody touch you.
Never! Never! Never! Never!
Never!
And you go back in your
corner, just to watch. She is normal.
She plays like a puppy with
herself, her things, and things
that are not there. But if she
builds a dollhouse in the air,
she knows it well enough to
forget it any time
some breathing thing breaks in
on her. But then the dreams
erupt again: Miss Cloud! I saw
you take that thing,
that thing, with handles,
where the rain came out? You thought
I didn't see you, I was the
dirt there! I was the puddle!
Now there's one-way glass, and
special toys with sensors.
There are ways to read what's
going on. But it is in
another language. Some other
moon! she yells, and she
is laughing. I'm some other
moon, not the same one!
I stay away from her and watch
from safe behind
the blinding mirrors. Only in
that space we stroke each other.
Two blurs on the sensors, we
munch Krackers together.
We both dream without letup,
like hallucinating racers.
We can't get anybody to go in,
anymore. It's just too sad,
they say, to try to speak to
her. She raises up those eyes
like little pumpkins and tells
you that your stones have turned
to things like on a necklace,
and all your buttons were dancing
last night, with little smiley
faces, but they stopped. She says
Don't talk to me! Can't you
see I'm singing! Then she
doesn't make a sound for an
hour. When she does, it's just to say
Hey doc, bring me some
crayolas, willya? My friend here
says I'm supposed to draw a
long tail right there
between his eyes, like
sparkles. If I don't, I'll be afraid
that he might go away. I saw
you ride him, too.
But you were just little, and
real real grey.
Let's have a little talk, I
bring myself to say.
Or what do you say we take a
walk together?
We already did, she says, and you were on the ceiling.
It was too steep, though, you
were having trouble breathing.
I try to see her eyes. She
laughs and puts them in her hands.
Are you o.k.?, I say. Really.
Can I get you anything? She says,
yeah, gimme a book that opens
like an eye. And get yourself
some sleep, doc. Really. You
look just like you're gonna die.
A man who had fallen among
shopkeepers,
and also among clerks, jerks,
hacks, flacks, and quacks,
and among petty malefactors
and demographic bookmakers, among
graft-takers, among
ball-breakers and home-wreckers and time-keepers,
this man took to telling
himself that he stood out—he
was no clockpuncher or
hogbutcher, no commercial bootlicker,
digital finger-cracker,
stooge, gopher, or blowboy for the bosses, he
had never stooped to
squealing, shilling, spilling his guts,
or stealing secrets for the
corporate gestapo—
no, he was pure of heart. He
could walk
through the valley of the
shadow of the New Nazi architecture
and breathe clear and never
flinch, look into those walls of shimmering bronzed glass
and see, among all the
downturned eyes of the sheep, bugs, and slugs,
the lackeys, the toadies with
beepers, the nerds, noodles, and nobodies creeping there,
his own face upturned, eyes
defiant under that glare and shimmering themselves.
Among that herd of toilers,
exploiters, and despoilers,
forest defoliators, junk
retailers, liars for fee and liars for free,
he saw himself high above the
crowd, a visage and a voice
no dope, dupe, dumbbell, dog,
or drone,
no doppelganger clone of
Management and Administration,
could mistake for one of them!
He thought the world
should be an oyster you could
eat raw without getting sick,
and he thought the thugs,
goons, apparachiks, bobos, and bimbos
dangling from their
strings—the gang bosses, section chiefs,
Heads, Chairs, Directors,
Squad Leaders, Presidents,
First and Second and Executive
Secretaries, everyone
who ever roped off awkward
paths to walk through
in a line, everyone who ever
said sign here, and here,
everyone who ever said, you'll
have to go and get the right form,
then, won't you?, everyone who
ever said, I'd be happy to,
but they won't let me,
everyone who ever made
a secret list of names—they
were what
stuck in your throat and made
the whole thing
come back up and spread out around
us this way,
so that the world looks like a
junkyard and smells like a death ward,
where the inmates tear each
other and themselves
and then cry themselves to
sleep in front of the t.v.,
or—even worse—find a way to
bribe the nurses
for some paper to write it all
down on, then fall
asleep with a smile, dreaming
that will show them, that will show them.
They move bright red and pale
red through the cities we
built them.
They meet each others’
lashless eyes, shake
hands like men and
women,
kiss each others’ scarred
lips, then stand back
and look at one another,
appalled, at peace.
In their bistros they roll up
their sleeves and drink
the coffee we ship in to them,
nibble sweet croissants,
and call out loud for their
checks in their scalded voices.
The meat of their arms is
crimson, scarlet, or charred
off the bone.
The morning paper carries all
the news
about recent burnings: here an
arson,
here a barn burns down, here a
grease fire,
here a carburetor blows up in
a kid’s face.
They sigh from the pits of
their ruined lungs.
Driving through here, one
cannot help
but see their eyes and teeth,
bright
white against the pink, red,
orange faces.
There is a mystery even in
their billboards,
ad after ad for pain
killers and soothing
creams.
But if you leave the beltway,
look out.
They’ve made their ghetto,
like the rest of us,
set up like a sideshow, glass
houses,
hidden microphones, extra
police,
prayer meetings all week long.
And how they sing! Hosannas
and blues,
reedy quartets, solo bass,
child in a corner.
Not shy, not hesitant, not
even concerned,
they sing as if singing were
neither crime
nor solace, but only burning
need:
not need to say, but need to
show:
bubbled lips, scorched tongues,
seared throats:
lungs full of smoke, blistered
hearts.
Though we have not decided
yet,
although we know the rebels
just
have come across the
playgrounds and junkyards
at the edge of the city and
now hold the library
and some parks and a
laundromat, even though
we’ve put a price on their
leader’s head, because we know
he is a criminal, he wants to
eat more than we feed him,
he wants to fuck our old women
and harness our lapdogs,
despite the promises we’ve made
him, all the goods
we’ve poured on them while all
the time
they laugh at us and mock the
way we talk,
they hate our art and
carbonated drinks and say
that our legal intoxicants are
something their god despises,
though they are the
ones who act irrationally, eating
with one hand and wiping with
the other,
bending in prayer while we try
to talk sense to them,
wrapping their women in
face-towels and making
their children memorize their
ugly philosophy
while, if they would only
smile on us, show us
one bright impulse of gentle
comprehension,
stop lying and denying and
threatening and insulting,
which they do while we forbear
and go easeful
against them, although they
know as well as we
they lack everything,
everything that could resist us,
all they do is shriek and
gabble while our shells
patter like soft rain in their
dusty villages, and if our own
children are safe and happy
with their mountains
of toys, theirs could be too,
if they would just give
a little, warm to us a little,
and then we would never,
never kill them all, despite
all that we hate
about everything they are,
although
we still have not decided yet.
First revelation: that
everything is bent, double:
(only for instance after passing
/ which on the ruffled roads has always some distance off twin beams of light
coming on as in a mirror / after getting up the nerve and passing / while
overhead a hawk overshoots a cowbird, goes by screeching / after what the ones
in the long slow lines call passing / as deep underneath, ancient codes pass
from this to that until all hooks up like Christmas lights and suddenly above a
blossom opens / after passing, more passing
Second revelation: the
compound is elemental:
(scarlet dress, on the stairs,
music up, lights dimming, her breath, lips, on my knees, face in her, her sway,
give, come down, pulling at my shirt, now tugging harder, now fierce, then roll
down together, in the corner, someone's short barking laugh, all this as one,
indissoluble, between the last breath and the last pulse
Third revelation: all is one,
but then there is exclusion:
(nothing opened like a radiant
gate.
nowise "ethnic."
someone saying, "See
you later!"
the rest not silence, but low
hum.
nor not musical, either.
someone saying, “You'll be
sorry!”
no refreshments, no
commodities.
a metaphor did not flow
through it.
someone saying, “You
promised!”
as a thing of spirit, too
quick to be uplifting, too loud to be profound.
afterward, everything
beautiful is framed by its cage.
Fourth revelation: low riders,
road crosses:
(hear something faroff
emptying. Tense moment of redrilling, rescraping, recutting. No evidence disposes
any face of time accomplished. No face either of those first, simplest
contortions, eye and tongue. Trips forth, louder than the heart can handle
under an arc of stars assigned to no real horizon. As in a mirror to see a
stranger. As on the telephone to hear one's own voice answer back: Is it
really you? Did you miss me? Do you love me yet? As on the dark hot jagged
road you make yourself a holy thing, killing your lights and riding on the
beams of the stranger behind you.
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