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      its hook-fingered rebar

       spine reinforced pearls condense

      in the tight and curled-down sky parts of me

       in the hair of his forearm the lake’s black & pitched on us

      in sheets that catch the flame of the city

       in the air as for air there’s just enough

      for now the doors of the car frozen shut and it’s him it’s not him it’s

       the taste of his voice in my mouth it’s not my mouth

      we talk every day which is never today

       til there’s nothing to say til no ache polices his veins

      til nothing ever ached like my mouth which is not my mouth

       for his as for now as if it was now and so ever would

      the battery’s been dead quiet storm gone

       and we’re tangled around each other for warmth

      the past’s nothing if not the irregular pulse of his lap

       in my ear and that cop saunters and wags

      and pisses on the car and thank christ leaves us to freeze

       before we can’t breathe or just breathe

      before we can’t freeze either way it was all there and now it’s not

       go ahead : take the dice and let them kick up on the curb

      you can walk away before they’re still

       if you want but don’t tell me there’s no number

      on the ground don’t say the last breath can’t be the last

       and after that it’s not breath just don’t ok

      til you’ve kicked the rear window out & let night be this night

       and splash to life all on your face which is this face

      that sounds that sound that sounds like that sound

       like my hands that ache beneath this ice as for friends and this ice

      and love and Berryman : two out of three (so pick three)

       will tell you what to do with rebar and wind in your mouth

      and buildings that fall like needles thru your eyes : get

       the frozen flame in your belly and hipbones

      cross to the wrong side of the rail gone raw and wave goodbye

       to what sounds that sound

      and yes every weekend Ric’s grandmamma Ms. Lou

       handed us her keys to Chicago and told us : remember baby,

      every good-bye ain’t gone so you look it’s not like I haven’t

       I’ve shut my eye and dreamed thru

      keyholes and I’ll be damned if she ain’t gone on and gone missing

       too

       I put it to bubbleboy and he popped,

      left a perfect semiswirl of razormist where invisible

       sun used to be. I put same to circleboy,

       you guessed it, snap addict,

       flat line. I approached Suci while she memorized

      the Presidents. Both pointer fingers up,

       eyes closed, she said wait, I love this

       one, Millard Fillmore. I’ll admit if put on the spot

      I don’t always know if the past

       tense of swing is swung or swang

      but I know I don’t mean

       either one. I mean cause it won’t go away.

       I feel dizzy when I think

       a pendulum in orbit is always plumb.

      I dissolve when I ask Mzée anything

       because he doesn’t know

       where I begin or end. He looks up at me

      from the floor, da da ca po—

      When put to, chlorine spill pled triflouride

       and moved toward me

       in such a way that said, you don’t want to know.

      Said, you don’t even want to breathe.

       I’ll say I don’t know if the past

      tense of put is pat or pit. But I know perfectly

       well that there’s no past

       tense of put. When I pit or patted it to whole add sugar

       packet of Kool-Aid in the mouth girl, she spilled

      out a mile of something too bright to be

       looked at. Smiled. Gum line a blaze-coast.

       I knew better than to ask Milan anyway,

      cause he can feel everything

      ready to shift, and so I know he’ll lie

       which isn’t a lie so much

      as a prediction of and against the impossible

       odds. If I pit it

       to him and he did, I know I’d tell him he lied

      when I know I’d have told Suci something

       different if the same had happened

       between us. Before I got my lips together and breath

      back of that for the first part of p

       Stacey turned around and told me (she may

       have told me then turned around)

       in no uncertain terms albeit wordlessly

      she was “too busy with the present

       tense of her hips and The History of Soul Train

      on PBS”—so you know what month it is—said

       “half the stuff in your head at any moment

       for instance” and back still (or again) to me touches her right

       index finger one by one to the tips of each

      of her four left hand fingers and a thumb

       “unions, real schools, and us, and”—waving at the room—“this

       and”—waving at the kids—“them” and starting over

      on the tips of her left-hand fingers “and February

       and did I say us

      are probably illegal in the state of Georgia

       with or without The History of Soul

       Train on PBS and that pistol in the transcendental

      drawer that is legal but I can’t exactly say that

       can I about most of what I feel

      like doing when I hold it in my hand” and my vision went

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