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Poems
by Claudia Grinnell |
On
the Eighth Day
And
here, I said, behold
the
angels living in this cave.
We
have tortured them
into
confessing
about
the heads of needles, and the number
of
times God made
us
in his own image,
and
who held the mirror.
Conditions
Vertical and Conditions Horizontal
Woman,
seven months pregnant
I
was the owner
of
one
complete
house--
then
slow infestation
needing
heartbeats,
blood, oxygen
pressing
for
more space. Certain foods
were
out of the question,
categorical
denial
of fried bacon.
It
feeds
on
me.
Man,
drinking coffee
black,
hasn't slept
in
days, walks to work humming
his
own lullaby.
He
is not himself
anymore,
his wife says.
He
is constantly exploding
objects:
lawns spattered
with
dandelion buds,
a
red tractor,
a
mountain of impressive dimension.
Message,
on an answering machine
If
I can't find you
don't
look for me.
Anna,
upon waking
finds
a toe in her bed.
Her
own bed, her own toe, detached
neatly
from her foot--no blood.
Other
body parts hang on
precariously,
but look
edible.
Stew of forearm,
or
rack of cheek.
Anna,
in the course of the day
drives
a red convertible,
waves
to whistling construction workers.
This
is the game
of
others who learned to sign
in
exact arrangements
of
onezeroonezeroonezero. Order
is
the essential idea here.
Don't
be dismayed: the roadside
is
littered with car cadavers,
still
shiny tail fins
jut
into the air. Grass gets
slicker
and more fatal.
One
moment
of
inattention
and
Anna's car spills
over
the bridge,
bonfires
into
a spray of water and metal.
Her
ear floats to the surface
twenty
minutes later and sails
down
the Ouachita, reaching
the
Delta by mid-morning.
I
cut
my heel in the shower,
bled
through seven layers
of
gauze and white tennis socks
before
I called my lover
asking
what to do. Stop
kneeling
he said. I'd offer
you
my comfort, he said,
but
my flesh is being eaten
by
termites. I'll leave you
with
this, he said, I'm afraid
to
speak, afraid of this state
of
logical permutations, afraid
that
the trees will grow faster
than
the poison I pour
into
the earth. So this is it
then,
I asked. No sapphires
for
my brand new bed. No
eruptions
of hunger, madness, words.
I
keep hearing
words,
there
must
be
termites
in heaven.
Once
Again, Tell Me What It Is
I.
Proper Way to Fall in Love
Not
in Port-au-Prince
when
you're down
to
your last Gourde,
not
in Algiers, Tripoli
or
Khartoum when Cassiopeia
drops
her veil
but
when all you have left
is
a sentence
about
gray nightingales--
the
color of life.
II.
Probably, This is Love
This
is the first line
of
a poem nesting precariously
in
the crevice of my elbow.
I
am not saying that
to
alarm you, but to draw
your
attention to the blossoming
sprouts
of yellow hibiscus
right
there at the tip
of
my tongue.
III.
Afterwards, Everyone is Covered with Fog
For
at least 99 incarnations
as
a limbless, worm-like
amphibian
[skeleton mostly
bony]
during times
when
dragons rule. Don't fret,
mein
Liebchen, ma cher,
it's
your face
that's
taking form.
I
conjure you, and you arrive
to
open the door,
in
an old black and white movie,
to
put your hand on your hip--
there's
a shadow across your face
and
your voice is raw
from
Whiskey and cigarettes.
And
I fall in love with you,
you,
a derelict sailboat
with
broken masts.
The
Case Against Idealism
Sacred
cows
moo
too.
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