At the open air cafe, a friend
asks me why I write poems. While he says this,
he's eating a hamburger, flesh
carved from the cow's side, and
riced along the inherent grain of
the creature's lifespan, and fried
so that the cow's steaming blood
enters into the veins of the earth's air
which are the thin currents of the wind
we breathe in. I can't say a thing
because breath has taken me over
the edge of my memory. Why
do I write this? Why do I love
to see the excellent teeth at their work?
What kept me struck dumb
ripping open the yeasty roll
for an answer, for the roll's un-
ravelling into its separate components.
I shook my head because I wanted
to lay my head on the table and moan but I didn't
know him that well, only enough to say
I don't know. Not enough
to say As a child I thought I would
die, every night. To say When my body
hit the wall when my head hit the floor my
back hit the edge of the stair the fist
my skull the fist my side the grip my throat
I became a gasp, a heart beat, a
stop. So that now I am a breach, I am my body without
breathing that desperately pries open the next
breath and cries out in gratitude at the breath and
cries out in loathing of the cry and cries out
and cries out
Finally
What I want is to break all the windows of my apartment
by throwing plates through them,
I want to hear some good cracks, I want
long, fine shards glossing the street
and blood on my hands, I want to
drive all the way back staining the steering wheel,
it will be light all 26 hours and the house
will still be there
and I'll have had foresight, extra plates
in the back seat, and my mother
will be in her canister but in the backyard
and buried just a foot underneath
and light rain on the ground, a stick in the dirt
pries her up–
I want just to handle the canister, try its
heft again, the small cries of the bone chips–
not to pry open and sift over ah no leave a few lids
clamped tight and my father
shall loiter nearby,
the fetid deaths of his skin cells un-
washed off, he so loves this dying, he still won't be
speaking but he will desire to speak,
his face will work at it
and the rain will work on his body
there will be much hissing in the world
this day, flakes of dead flesh and ash scraps
will rise up and rain back and
collect in gutter dreck and stream into
the water supply channel and the absolute smallest
particles of my parents will join the particles of other people
in the reservoir and they will be ladled up,
they will give baths, they will quench thirsts.
