214

she was sitting at the bar alone, save for an empty glass
what are you having i asked, sliding into a seat a few down from hers
i caught myself staring at the black ink that spilled down her collarbone
cosmopolitan she said without looking over at me
crossing her ankles, she let one stiletto slide to the floor
my eyes were drawn to her slender toes, the neon lights glinting off jet black polish

i flagged down the bartender and ordered a drink for each of us
when they arrived, she reached over and proffered hers for a clink
i noticed the pale circle on her third finger, a faint indent where a shackle used to be

i felt emboldened by the vodka so i asked you here alone
only then did she turn and look straight at me
not anymore
it took me aback – her directness – and i forgot my words
she smirked (a knowing smile) and turned back to her drink

she plucked the lime from the rim of her glass and motioned it toward me
i love the tartness she said, and delicately wrapped her lips around the rind
her teeth tearing the flesh

we sipped in silence for several more minutes
then she asked wanna get out of here
where to i glanced despondently out the rain-streaked windows 

she stood up, and, downing the rest of her cosmo, slipped her foot back in along the insole
she rocked her ankle back and forth, gripping the edge of the bar for balance
i stared, transfixed, until her smooth, soft heel sunk home

my room she said as she turned and clicked away
i scrambled to leave a few bills for the tab before following after her

214 she called over her shoulder, leading me toward the elevators

i met her in the bay and attempted to join her in the lift
but she placed a firm palm against my chest
you take the stairs she said as her fingers flexed, surprising me with their strength
i backed up a step, the doors closed between us, and i booked it for the stairwell

on my way up i loosened my tie and untucked my shirt
shook myself out of my blazer
tossing it over one shoulder, i found her door, and knocking, found it was open for me

i stepped through the threshold and took in the suite
there was the softest sound, as of silk falling to the floor

i had long enough to see her naked before me, long enough to grin like the fool i was
but not long enough 
to register her own exultant grin 

not long enough to turn around
or escape

room 214

It’s All Academic

Become a teacher.
Get a mortgage on a house in the suburbs.
Buy a car with good gas mileage.
Get involved in the local poetry readings.
Start a zine and publish only those who publish you.
Use superlatives
like ‘excellent’ or ‘brilliant’ when describing the lousy work of your friends.
(Flattery is your friend too).
Read William Carlos Williams.
Become obsessed with his Red Wheelbarrow theory.
Cultivate a garden in your backyard.
Plant it with lima beans, bell peppers, radishes.
Watch everything die.
Give up on it.
Read more William Carlos Williams.
Be sober.
Get tenure.
Never miss a meal.
Ignore your betters.
Go bald.
Get back to nature.
Begin by mowing your own lawn.
Write some poesy about it (in the Charles Simic style – trade
Williams
in for him).
Become obsessed with chinch bugs and molecrickets
and the growth of grass and various types of weed killers.
Crash into a stump with your lawnmower.
Do a flip over the handlebars.
Get whiplash.
Wear a neckbrace for some months.
A fat and cumbersome one.
One that presses down into your collarbones and pushes up
into your jowls so your jowls
drape themselves over the edges of it
giving you the appearance of a Basset Hound with its flabby
mug sitting on a linoleum floor.
Believe that your students are noting your wit
when they’re really drawing cartoons of you.
Sell your lawn equipment.
Hire cheap Guatemalan labor and pay off your house
and pay off your car
and be even more sober
and buy a Hog
and leathers and a plasma TV.
And come home early from a faculty meeting one day
and witness
the meter reader
or the software salesman
or the bug exterminator
working away
on your wife.
You start shouting
and they start shouting and you ball
up your fists and the veins stand up in your forehead
and your whole bald head turns red and then
a deep shade of monkey-vomit purple comes down over your face
and he climbs off her
apologizes snatches up his clothes and balls
them up and placing them carefully over his nether regions
slinks half-nude along the wall and out the front door
and you go into your study
and you bawl God out
and reach for a glass of water.
Then reach for Simic.
When he fails
reach for Galway
Kinnell and Kinnell failing
lick your wounds
and check your pride
and forgive your wife
Because you can’t really blame her.
You turned her into your mother the day you got married
and besides, a poet needs a little pain in his life.
It gives him something to write about.
But don’t write about that.
Keep writing your surrealism, or whatever you call it.
Follow the herd.

Time To Waste

I see you wanted to waste a little time.
So did I.

You, the reader, must have too much of it
Me, the writer, doubly so.

Think of all the other things
you could be doing now.

Think of all the other things
I could have done instead.

It seems we both make bad choices.
Isn’t it good to know
We have this much in common?

Let’s make another bad choice,
This time together.

You can read this poem to the end.
And me? I’ll write it.

Middleman

Christ knows why
But after hearing 
You’re back with him
I’m remembering 
How you told me
He always tried
To fuck you 
In the arse
And how sometimes,
Unwilling 
You let him

And I ain’t saying
It’s nice to do so
But as I think of him
Hammering away,

I can’t tell if it’s
You 
Or me
Who’s in
More pain.

Bible Camp Agnostic

We talked about sex at Bible camp: 
three young women, not yet
out of high school, bored out
of our wits in downstate Illinois.

The summer torpor drove us
to seek weird companionship
amongst Christian families—
screaming kids dressed in overalls,
pasty-faced pre-adolescents,
women who wore bras under
their nightgowns at bedtime.

In giggling whispers, the girls
and I discussed baseball terms.
One had already made it
to home plate, at age thirteen.
The other, more bashful,
had reached second base.

I estimated my own progress
as slightly past third.

Midafternoon, dutiful,
we sang songs about Jesus.
The pastor threw his head back,
crooning about Jesus’ arms, how much
he wanted those arms around him. 

I didn’t believe in Jesus,
so my mind always wandered.
I thought of my boyfriend,
and the hardness of his bat.

By the end of the weekend, 
I was best friends with the girls. 
The three of us exchanged
phone numbers before we parted.

We hugged each other, tearful, 
promising to keep in touch,
but, as I should have predicted,
Jesus had other plans.

The first girl had sex with a cop
while she was still underage.

I’m sure my other friend
eventually made it past second,

but something tells me
it was less than what she expected.

At this point, I’m just glad
to swing somebody’s bat,
and I hope somewhere in heaven,
Jesus is swinging his as well.

Siemann

I walk into the interview
with a fake confidence I have 
not had in years.

Even the lighting seems half-favourable.

An older gentleman stands up
so we can shake hands.

Good to meet you!
I’m Richard Siemann,
head of merchandise.

I stop and pause for a moment.

So, you’re Dick Siemann?
The words just come out.

His face grows red
and he collects his papers,
says that concludes our 
interview.

Acting as though 
this has never happened
before.

Sound Like

Simple and to the point. 
Did anyone hear a woman screaming,
Like she was being killed or murdered? Around noon today? 
I heard it from my backyard but could not pinpoint the direction.
I drove around the subdivision for about 5 minutes. The screams stopped. 

The responses:

I only heard the fucking leaf-blowers.
Probably got their cable bill.
Might have been a fox. They sound like a woman screaming. 
Might have been a bobcat They sound like a woman screeching.
Maybe an owl? But not likely during the daytime.
Probably the brats at 1409 Stonebrook. They never shut up.
Maybe a Jehovah’s Witnesses at the wrong house,
Maybe a coyote, a T-Rex, or Bigfoot? It’s mating season.

Did you call the police? Did you call 911?

Someone did. 
Too late.

Sometimes what sounds like a woman screaming
Is a woman screaming.

Birthday Cake Doesn’t Taste the Same

Eye of the storm
I’m in a fake friend-neighbor’s 
third floor bathroom; coke mirror haunts
my devastation and
resistance

Left the faucet running with
Pulp Fiction on pause
but the movie is still playing in my head
Something’s pulling me under-
This party’s fucking over; dumb bitch
overboard, where the sharks serve me
cake and truth-or dare me to bleed

Full moon in Scorpio
and this frog princess has been stung 
a few hundred times or so, pondering
too long at Crystal Lake; killer crossroads,
stagnant bath water-over thinking,
over drinking the death parade-kool-aid,
slow motion blinking-
I’ve been merely existing
inside an esoteric yawn

god in the white lines; god
in the mirror- eyes
on the prize yo,
Are you listening? Grow up,
just a mini ego death on a Saturday night-
The bitch is back and all that jazz
I forgot how to have fun or maybe,
I never knew at all
The sharks giggle, 
it’s Tuesday

I don’t respond but I’ll be gone
by the time they breakdown

the doors.

Jimmy

Thursday night
Sittin’ ’round a table
At Clete’s bar, we all
Try to come up with
Ways to get some
Extra money.  Me?
I’m sellin’ a few things.
Paul’s workin’ overtime.
Poncho’s just lookin’
For the part-time job.
Jimmy laughs at us
And says gettin’ by
Ain’t all that hard.
“You want a Coke,
Suck a dick.  You want
A pack of smokes,
Suck a dick.”  None
Of us were ever that
Hard up that we even
Considered following
Jimmy’s advice.  But
None of us had spent
Twenty years in prison.

Massachusetts 

it had been about a year
since I last called 
and her Dad had died
so I facetimed her 
to give my condolences 
and as I watched her face
I felt her long soft flowing hair
the back of her neck
the joy-burst 
of her lips
and continued to get 
aroused 
looking at her bare shoulder
above her cream-colored fuzzy 
jumper 
and suddenly 
I proposed 
that we be married to each other
about a week 
once a year 
and she said
Yes 

now 
contemplating our next rendezvous 
I miss her body 
remembering the glorious sight of her
riding me that warm summer in Boston  

I miss her 
like the sailor the late morning rise