blud - Rachel McKibbens

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        Special Thanks

       I

      the first time

      I came back to life

      was in 1980.

      I awakened

      head a blue

      labyrinth

      trapped in sound—

      a grotesque clutter:

      the meep-meep of a

      cartoon bird

      sticky flock

      of children

      screeching

      in the courtyard.

      Then a voice

      (voices?)

      I did not

      recognize:

      the ruined gasp

      emerging from

      within

      my cutoff throat.

      I unwrapped

      the telephone cord—

      how long had I been

      down?—skull

      fever-pounding

      from the blackout,

      body feathered in sweat.

      I listened

      to the room,

      felt the rush

      & shuffle

      of my heart—

      a felled finch.

      Lavender shock

      of resurrection.

      Lucky my dad

      was not awake

      to find me there—

      his radiant little

      death inventor

      with X’d-out eyes,

      a halo of birds

      circling my dome.

      Lucky to have

      outlived this

      unripened error.

      Can you imagine it?

      A child standing

      at the mouth

      of the underworld

      pleading

      for a time-out,

      trying to reason

      with whatever’s

      in charge:

       No, no! I never

       meant to stay dead.

       I simply wanted

       a sweeter life.

      a brief biography of the poet’s mother

      There was

      a child

      hemorrhaging

      light,

      the blue song

      of her brain,

      an early maggot

      writhing.

      Her mother,

      a jealous

      newlywed,

      with looking-glass

      hands & a tub

      full of bleach

      thieved & thieved

      until the child

      became

      a quiet room

      a silence born

      of interrogated

      flesh.

      Girl is the worst season.

      Mother no guarantee.

      No clothes or meat,

      no heavy tit wrecked

      with milk.

      So the blue song

      became a dirge,

      then the dirge

      became a girl.

      maybe this will explain my taste in men

      When Dad busted my face open

      I got to stay home from

      school, watched cartoons

      all day like a goddamn king.

      Dad called in sick,

      icing his damaged fist

      with frozen peas & meat.

      Overheard him on

      the phone with his boss:

       Broke my hand yesterday

       playing ball with the kids.

       Can you believe it?

       I caught a fastball, no glove.

       My own damn fault.

       I’ll get those blueprints

       to you tomorrow morning,

       first thing.

      Poor Dad. When he hung up

      he squeezed my shoulder

      & winked. Just after lunch,

      there was a knock on the door.

      I peeped through the blinds

      with my one good eye, saw

      a blonde in a nurse’s uniform.

      Dad opened the door & howled

      as she sang him a high-pitched

      song, bending at the waist

      to show off her tits.

      At the end of it, she handed him

      a catcher’s mitt with a

      get-well card.

       The boys at the office

       sure look after me!

      he roared, shaking his

      head in disbelief

      then handed me

      the remote so I,

      too, could

      know love.

      poem written with a sawed-off typewriter

      Some of us vanish

      out of habit, guided

      by some

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