top of page

Theme for English 4391 and other poems

Theme for English 4391

“Go home and write a page tonight. And let that page come out of you – then it will be true.”

isn’t it reasonable to want

to be different than i am ­–

there was once a little girl –

i don’t remember her name

now, hardly remember my own

through the hazy wisconsin weather,

swirling storms of inxs and talking

heads, sugar ray telling us “someday–”

but isn’t each one of us nameless &

obscure, since it was decided for us

that the world would end before

we were fully grown, before we

could change – i need something

to hold on to & a little bit of time

to feel human again, while my life

is written inside my elbow, searing

ink into marrow – someday this will be

long ago, when we have already settled

into who we are, soft as coming home

& sad as that, too – the sweaty warm

keys cling to my pocket lining – part of me

knows we exist for our own safety – summer

at my house & still i miss orion – i know

i’m saying one thing & meaning another,

but isn’t that what we all do, he did it too,

i remember him differently, memory a dimly

fogged glass that’s been read too many

times to make sense from any perspective,

something tea leaves can’t discern & don’t

want to – the unknowability of another’s mind.

 

self-hate

my second mind mocks me

from the shadows shown gray; i am not

who i say i am. but i will hold

your suitcase if you pull mine, you

with your cracking elbows & dreams

that slip

below, you with twelve hundred

half-broken pencils, looking for a way

to bridge the gap between here & forever,

the cousins christened hate & love pulling

closer, alone by night, hidden by day.

i am you, for as far as i can throw myself.

i can imagine myself now: i shed

my skin, blueberry irises flashing

sorry, we’re closed until the record

drops out of this everlasting loop

of pits & pain, from sour to sweet.

the raspberry seed rots in my molar cap

as the brake lights behind me glow.

again, the sky bruises as a peach,

turning my cheeks freckled strawberry.

my hands are climbing the mountain range

made of my spine –

up, i shiver,

hold my bent ribs, reshape & correct

the divot above my left kidney.

my unreliable legs have pushed

me to the ground, but i cannot

hate what moves me to the stars.

 

a sestina for the rain, my bones, my soul

i want to let my brain alone for once—

if you catch me on the right

day, i’ll have to come clean.

my delicate wrist is easy to snap;

the fragility of my skeleton will pull

my skull to the ground; the rain

drenches my sheets. take the shape of rain

while wanting might and dark just once,

wanting to resist my ego’s pull.

there is an acute angle stemming right

through my frontal lobe, ready to snap

my eyes shut. storms can clean

or mutilate peace, destroy the clean

i once knew. out of the rain

the bush burns and my shoulders snap,

shake and warm what is left. once,

the angle expanded to the right,

and my spine succumbed to the pull

of the dirt. my spine and mind pull

in opposite directions, leave my body clean

and pure in the road, cars in the right

lane braking around my body in the rain.

my brain betrayed me once,

and now my bones pop and snap

when i stand. this week the cold snap

crawled through my kneecap to pull

at grief. the myth of forty days once

held me over, a flood to wash us clean,

to let the evil drown in endless rain,

but i’m not convinced god has the right

to condemn his own children, right?

if i truly believe that i can snap

out of it, is it confirmed that the rain

would save me? is it possible to pull

myself from hell, to break and clean

with my own might, just this once?

my new right iris has no pull

on my mind as i snap, a cut clean

through flesh and rain, for once.


Featured Posts
Recent Posts
Archive
Categories
Follow Us
  • Facebook Basic Square
  • Twitter Basic Square
  • Instagram Social Icon
bottom of page