"Small Town Crown" and "Aubade"

Small Town Crown

1.

A woman weeps in a bar, ashes

her cigarette, grows gray

as trash tumbling in acid

mine seepage. They say, “Pay

your tab. Ain’t nothin’ special

‘bout losing water, land, or sons

whose teeth wash up like scrap metal

in sinking holes. The Susquehanna runs

one way, ma’am, and that’s forward.”

This, the collective finger-wag of neighbors.

Sinking in wicker chairs, slouching toward

after-church beers, they wipe boots on deer furs

from last season, wonder why he went outside,

took pills, and swam: “What a fag-ass suicide.”

2.

Here, everything’s a faggot. Your car

that won’t start: faggot. Burning coffee:

faggot. The scab on your tongue: faggot. Far

from coal town, in Louisville where men pee

their names on cement, the word might

be fixed as hide under a nail, stretched

scientifically in a museum, light

spearing it’s meaning—Hell, this whole wretch’d

business’s a faggot. Ya’hear? A real

faggot the day I told that poor woman

the cause of death: his last meal,

Vicodin in the blood. Look, man,

I was his doctor. Of course he sucked my cock

for pills. Ev’ry one did, but they didn’t talk.

3.

Talk is cheap. Where are the protests?

The banjos? In the 60s, we made music

when we’s was sad, son, messed

shit up right good. Lose music,

and you’d wanna die, too. These days

it ain’t nothin’ but clickedy-clack, rock star

robots. Society: a circuit-board maze

with some bullshit minotaur

at the center. There’s no feeling

in it, no feeling--That’s why he’s dead.

Now you listen, I was dealing

during the AIDS thing, Gay don’t spread

like disease and—What’s that? No,

sorry, I’m outta weed…want some blow?

4.

We bought weed from the same guy. That’s all.

I mean, sometimes we talked—how could we not?

We were blazed. And yeah, we’d walk to the mall,

buy pretzels. Loiter like flys. We fought

only once. A blonde, belly-button pierced

thing walked by, I said something ‘bout fucking

he said shut the fuck up. He was always fierce

‘bout that shit. I punched from the left. Ducking,

he stumbled back, laughed. And I remember

how he was like a fox in a trap. Peeling

back his gums, he smiled in the November

crisp. His smile was sharp. Reel

in the chain, go ahead, try freeing him.

Stylish, stuck, he’d say, “Call me James not Jim.”

5.

I ain’t “stuck” here. Let’s get that one thing straight. These mines were home to my folk ever since The Old Country kicked ‘em out. Call it fate or alcoholism, we still rinse

the dust from our throats with moonshine. An old man’s baptism. Cleans everything

but the lungs. They say there’s a fine for unfiltered power plants, the ring of black dust like a coffee stain coughed to high heaven. We ain’t payin’. Can’t buy beer without cash, can’t get cash without coal—know what I’m saying? Hell, I was saving for his college. He was smart. Now he’s dead, and I’m rich…heh…that’s the worst part…

6.

He was part Iroquois, I think, part Czech

and um, African. His mama’s dark,

anyway, a sipper of triple sec.

Why does it matter? Mark

my words, he got it from her.

That flair. He liked luxury, couldn’t drink

piss like the rest of us. Liquor,

leather, alligator shoes—you think

the Lord cares how you look?

I’m a good Christian woman, only God can

judge, you understand, The Good Book

knows more than the newspaper. I only scanned

his obituary. And yes, it was funny, crude

to see all that pride drown in the nude.

7.

Dear James, I’m drowning in small talk.

Dear James, forgive me, I know

this is impossible, these brain toxins

produced by grief. In dreams I row

through a lake, my arms are never strong

enough, my heart never laughing

enough, my tongue all wrong.

When I wake, I go to town, crash

through conversation. Coffee makes me

anxious. Liquor makes me depressed.

People make me both. Our family tree

keeps losing leaves. And what’s left,

twigs, matches? Enough to burn a boat,

a child, the words they spoke?

Aubade

When paintings receive

praise, I can’t admit

art school was

an expensive excuse

to keep busy. I say some

shrugging half-truth:

Do anything for long enough

and you’ll get good. Like the easy

Goodbye, all it takes

is practice. 7 AM ruffles

frayed prayer flags.

The dean at Tulane said

Tibetan Wind Horses

symbolize sprinting souls,

they will carry

my love for miles

so long as I drape rooms

in color. Outside,

hooves clop and echo:

mules tug brimming

carriages, mules because,

unlike horses, mules are

infertile. Docile. Willing

to trot the same six blocks

under the same cold whip

for years. 8 AM wafts

coffee, river water, oranges.

Every smell urges

be here. The man who left

his passport open

on my floor called

from Colorado, I couldn’t

put down my pen

long enough to answer. 9 AM,

and the morning

is long, but not as long

as what will come

after the morning.

In art school, teachers drew

circles in chalk, told me

time is distance. This life

consists of intersecting circles:

Mules rounding corners.

Horses rounding

bigger corners. People rounding

the Earth’s diameter, embracing

or not embracing as they pass.

10 AM nudges early

drinkers to river-side bars.

I think of joining them,

of keeping busy.

Sublimation is the process

by which we psychologically

replace old circles for new

circles. I broke

a circle once, everyone

saw. Friends still

talk about it, even the man

who left his passport

said, “I’ve heard

of you, naughty circle

breaker.” It’s embarrassing,

the way I jab elbows

in fat speech bubbles,

deflate expectations.

11 AM tugs me

inside. I’m looking

at paintings, telling myself

half-truths and laughing.

I couldn’t laugh if it

were all true,

dear God never let me

speak whole truths nothing

but whole truths Amen. 12 PM

shakes windows, chimes

a circle closing. The coda begs

repeat. Return

to prayer, to song,

to swelling, stretching

rituals of forgetting