Beichuan the Assassin
Jianjiang river
undulates
to a deceptive cadence,
grinds her hips like Brazil.
Jesus, jumping or no.
Happy Buddha,
the man and not the dish.
Professors of geology, everywhere:
We congratulate you on
a most spectacular opening.
An evening of murderous reverberations.
Brought us to our feet. Our knees. Our longest rest.
Cut-rate coffee,
great businessman of the East,
lead-based paint,
take note:
Every courtship, marriage,
the birth and death of every daughter
everywhere
is this bone white china
at cupboard’s edge.
May it luck out.
Should tide be willing,
please call on Beichuan the Assassin.
Ask her grace only if she’d be so kind
as to spare someone,
a reminder,
a clue.
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In Queue
Netflix sent Gandhi.
I eat Cool Whip from the tub,
wishing I had faith.
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Heads will roll for this
3 dozen men
from Santiago
flew in for our pitch.
Said thanks, gave them each a flashlight.
Deals will be done.
The evening headline reads,
‘FAA to 36 passengers: No Chile for you.
Matching flashlights cause airport scare. ’
There is always next time.
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Layaway
on layaway for 3 months I could pick out anything I wanted
at Christmas and birthdays.
This let mom make easy payments
that weren’t easy, could never have been
with dad’s salary, new Western needs.
School clothes, too;
Outfit after outfit, my faith placed in them to
make me cool. A suede jacket at full price because mom
wanted everything for me.
Store credit cards touting incentives
like a shit storm of poverty
looked good to us.
We turned our back on layaway.
No payments for a year! We were rats
to alcohol, freed from the layaway years
of waiting and paying and waiting. Working for something. Owning it.
We signed up, two litres of cola for the trouble
and bought cameras (still and moving),
“Italian” textiles made in Korea, shipped by way of Italy,
monogrammed hip flasks, noise canceling headphones,
television satellites, phones we touch more
than our lovers
that led to magnificent cars,
ripping out perfectly good countertops,
a new refrigerator just like the old one but stainless,
if by stainless you mean “impossible to keep clean”.
Now, bilked good
with no chicken left on the bone,
having borrowed against things we are borrowing,
traded wives for nannies, Wii Fits, carryout,
it only makes sense that nothing fails,
lest we remember it takes two hands to spit
and shake on it,
we run these death camps,
there are too few boats for all of us the next time it floods.
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Summer 1993 (For Becky)
Tony Spatola’s cold hard cash
was sno-cone red,
wadded fives and wadded ones
drizzled medicinal grape.
Earning it meant 10 hour days
at the igloo, shaving ice and counting cups,
tallying styrofoam like there was an
accounting department, loss prevention, something to even lose
that wasn’t long since gone.
How we basked in fringe benefits like cavities,
juvenile onset diabetes,
the ability to mound ice flawlessly
with a gasoline funnel.
Lessons learned:
You have to start somewhere. Everything ferments.
I get scared when I’m alone.
Tony stopped by once and yelled
about everything, alarmingly angry
for a purveyor of children’s rainbow dreams,
frozen water.
Maybe Becky tasted
tamarindo, chamoyada,
maybe she knows why latinos turned up in droves
at 5 minutes to close?
Peddling home past dusk,
mustachioed in primary colors and
stuck to myself, pruned
I would hum a Pumpkins tune
and play like I wasn’t fifteen,
wasn’t riding a ten-speed,
wouldn’t have given it up
in a heartbeat for a job at the mall
selling shoes.
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Son and Father
It is hard to understand why
some lights go from green to red,
never yellow.
Short is not empty
like unborn is not shelter.
He knew the pains of war,
the joy of new mornings.
Reunions, deployments,
hot tea and anything oatmeal raisin.
Our pumpkin seed,
my smallest hero,
started and stopped without
time to slow, full speed to
never.
He watches me write,
knows he is better.
There are no words we share,
the angels and the left behind.
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Westbrook
As I whisper
don’t hold back
to what might be cilantro
the wind plays two leaves
against each other,
like dogfighting dragon flies,
and my enthrallment is
your father.
Very next day
I pass him on a map
in a forgotten book,
the pages turned sleepy
from his tight command.
He asks I relay:
I come back in everything
new, only left
to find more for us
to learn.
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We’ve been approved (Great News)
Now that the bank has loaned us a home,
the bank has loaned us two cars
and we’ve borrowed careers
with our borrowed degrees
and the loans could get called anytime
and our checks to the dr. for kid no. 1
precede bills for kid no. 2
and our socks, select thoughts,
locks of hair, packs of cards
are not ours, and may never be.
I’m thinking we flee with our names
and our flaws
to try starving,
shivering
free.
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Fulcrum
Between the cucumber
and pickle
is vinegar,
the grape and raisin
is sun.
Citizen and criminal
just crime, or a frame,
Homemaker
homeless
a door.
Between devout
and fanatic
is the method of death,
old and antique
just an eye.
Lyric and poem
the intent of a song,
conqueror
conquered
a fight.
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Tell your sister
He spoke unto me:
praise Him not for that which could
just be goddamn luck.
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