3 poems for a saturday

for the real post for today, you can skip one down...but i realized i haven't posted any of my poetry in a while. it seems strange, considering that i a) belong to poetry thursday (oh? what? i'm a member? whoops!) and that b) writing's all i've ever done with my life, to the extent that i've enrolled myself in a university program to learn more about it.

the answer is truly simple...this is a place for me to figure shit out, to think about the big questions, or remind myself of beauty...my other 'work' feels so separate, somehow.
...interesting thoughts...i want to go read...


To Kate

Kate and I spend our grocery money on pedicures,
sitting in the maroon chairs at the Island Sun Spa,
pretending we are celebrities drinking coffee out of paper cups.

In the windows are dyed orchids in vases; framed
pictures of women in sunglasses, their bleached hair upswept;
piles of fashion magazines, wilting in the sun.

Kate sits, poised as porcelain, her fingers folded in her lap,
as the esthetician, a fat woman wearing pastel,
rubs her feet with the pumice stone.

We don’t talk; this is a sacred occasion,
one incensed with apple-scented fly paper,
framed by the ticking ceiling fan.

Kate dresses her toes in mango sorbet, I choose
vintage rosee; and we have our nails filed, our cuticles tucked
to a discreet distance, and then dried under lamps

and then we pay, and leave, passing Loblaws
on the way down Meadowlands, and open beers
to celebrate, sitting in our first backyard.

Later, I will wake at midnight to find Kate
eating three crackers in the dark, her arms
gleaming like the scales of whitefish on the counter.


Failed Love Affair

When we met, it was a Tuesday, and I was twenty-three,
sitting demurely on the bar stool at Darcy McGees.
There was a mean rain outside the window.

We went back to your apartment off Somerset.
You told me that from your front window, you watched
a prostitute being beaten by a policeman, how her head
sounded like fruit, hitting the hood of the car.
You poured rum and cokes for us, and we drank
side by side on your love seat,
listening to Perry Como,
until my head hurt from the sugar.

You were the first man I kissed who bit my lower lip,
who pushed me against a wall and held my wrists
as your mouth went to the freckles on my shoulder.
You whispered “you’re such a doll” into my neck,
until I felt strangled, until I felt the mask slide up,
with its clicking eyes, its rambutan eyelashes.

In the morning you made eggs with salsa for breakfast,
I set the table neatly, fussing over the placemats.
We ate quietly, alone with our earl-grey tea and hangovers,
until you said, “You know I’m never going to leave my girlfriend.
Right?”

I just felt tired. My head hurt, I wanted black coffee,

I wanted to go home.


A Seizure They Call Petit Mal

I find out by falling out of bed:
the carpet on the ceiling, my tongue tripped,
hanging loosely in my throat.

My arms and legs, slackened like gunny sacks
full of soft mud, thump,
useless metronomes against the wood floor, my bed frame,
my eyes, which suddenly have blinkered minds of their own.

Then Dad rushes in, leans over me
so I can smell his sour dream breath, he calls my name
his voice slow as syrup in my ears
and I lean forward, commanded,
into his palm.

The hall light undulates around me like
an eel, a moray, some order of anguilleformes
sliding, surreptitious, clean-cut as a knife.
I perform the dance it wants, stepping with feet
gone mad with rubber,

as Dad holds my back,
and Mom, on the kitchen phone,
screams for a doctor.

I walk like this for hours, a drunken marionette,
until the room
reverts
becomes once again the clear space
with white walls,
book shelves,
a piano
standing muted in the corner.