Crush (3 page)

plates carried away.
He doesn't know

what to do with his hands.
He likes the feel

of the coffeepot.
More than the hacksaw?

Yes, and he likes flipping the chairs,

watching them fill with people. He likes

the orange juice and toast of it, and waxed

floors in any light.
He wants to be tender

and merciful.
That sounds overly valorous.

Sounds like penance. And his hands?

His hands keep turning into birds and

flying away from him.
Him being you.

Yes.
Do you love yourself?
I don't have to

answer that.
It should matter.
He has a

body but it doesn't matter, clean sheets

on the bed but it doesn't matter.
This is

where he trots out his sadness. Little black

cloud, little black umbrella.
You miss

the point: the face in the mirror is a little

traitor, the face in the mirror is a pale

and naked hostage and no one can tell

which room he's being held in.
He wants

in, he wants out, he wants the antidote.

He stands in front of the mirror with a net,

hoping to catch something.
he wants to

move forward into the afternoon because

there is no other choice.
Everyone in this

room got here somehow and everyone in

this room will have to leave.
So what's left?

Sing a song about the room we're in?

Hammer in the pegs that fix the meaning

to the landscape?
The voice wants to be

a hand and the hand wants to do something

useful. What did you really want?
Someone

to pass this with me.
You wanted more.

I want what everyone wants.
He raises

the moon on a crane for effect, cue the violins.

That's what the violins are for. And yes,

he raises the moon on a crane and scrubs it

until it shines.
So what does it shine on?

Nothing.
Was there no one else?
Left-handed

truth, right-handed truth, there's no pure

way to say it.
The wind blows and it makes

a noise. Pain makes a noise. We bang on

the pipes and it makes a noise. Was there

no one else?
His hands keep turning into

birds, and his hands keep flying away

from him.
Eventually the birds must land.

I Had a Dream About You

All the cows were falling out of the sky and landing in the mud.

You were drinking sangria and I was throwing oranges at you,

but it didn’t matter.

I said my arms are very long and your head’s on fire.

I said kiss me here and here and here

and you did.

Then you wanted pasta,

so we trampled out into the tomatoes and rolled around to make the sauce.

You were very beautiful.

We were in the Safeway parking lot. I couldn’t find my cigarettes.

You said Hurry up! but I was worried there would be a holdup

and we would be stuck in a hostage situation, hiding behind

the frozen meats, with nothing to smoke for hours.

You said
Don’t be silly
,

so I followed you into the store.

We were thumping the melons when I heard somebody say
Nobody move!

I leaned over and whispered in your ear
I told you so
.

There was a show on the television about buried treasure.

You were trying to convince me that we should buy shovels

and go out into the yard

and I was trying to convince you that I was a vampire.

On the way to the hardware store I kept biting your arm

and you said if I really was a vampire I would be biting your neck,

so I started biting your neck

and you said
Cut it out!

and you bought me an ice cream, and then we saw the UFO.

These are the dreams we should be having. I shouldn’t have to

clean them up like this.

You were lying in the middle of the empty highway.

The sky was red and the sand was red and you were wearing a brown coat.

There were flecks of foam in the corners of your mouth.

The birds were watching you.

Your eyes were closed and you were listening to the road and I could

hear your breathing, I could hear your heart beating.

I carried you to the car and drove you home but you

weren’t making any sense

I took a shower and tried to catch my breath.

You were lying on top of the bedspread

in boxer shorts, watching cartoons and laughing but not making any sound.

Your skin looked blue in the television light.

Your teeth looked yellow.

Still wet, I lay down next to you. Your arms, your legs, your naked chest,

your ribs delineated like a junkyard dogs.

There’s nowhere to go
, I thought.
There’s nowhere to go
.

You were sitting in a bathtub at the hospital and you were crying.

You said it hurt.

I mean the buildings that were not the hospital.

I shouldn’t have mentioned the hospital.

I don’t think I can take this much longer.

In the dream I don’t tell anyone, you put your head in my lap.

Let’s say you’re driving down the road with your eyes closed

but my eyes are also closed.

You’re by the side of the road.

You’re by the side of the road and you’re doing all the talking

while I stare at my shoes.

They’re nice shoes, brown and comfortable, and I like your voice.

In the dream I don’t tell anyone, I’m afraid to wake you up.

In these dreams it’s always you:

the boy in the sweatshirt,

the boy on the bridge, the boy who always keeps me

from jumping off the bridge.

Oh, the things we invent when we are scared

and want to be rescued.

Your jeep. Your teeth. The coffee that you bought me.

The sandwich cut in half on the plate.

I woke up and ate ice cream in the dark,

hunched over on the wooden chair in the kitchen,

listening to the rain.

I borrowed your shoes and didn’t put them away.

You were crying and eating rice.

The surface of the water was still and bright.

Your feet were burning so I put my hands on them, but my hands

were burning too.

You had a bottle of pills but I wouldn’t let you swallow them.

You said
Will you love me even more when Im dead?

And I said
No
, and I threw the pills on the sand.

Look at them
, you said.
They look like emeralds
.

I put you in the cage with the ocelots. I was trying to fatten you up

with sausage and bacon.

Somehow you escaped and climbed up the branches of a pear tree.

I chopped it down but there was no one in it.

I went to the riverbed to wait for you to show up.

You didn't show up.

I kept waiting.

Straw House, Straw Dog

1

I watched TV. I had a Coke at the bar. I had four dreams in a row

where you were burned, about to burn, or still on fire.

I watched TV. I had a Coke at the bar. I had four Cokes,

four dreams in a row.

Here you are in the straw house, feeding the straw dog. Here you are

in the wrong house, feeding the wrong dog. I had a Coke with ice.

I had four dreams on TV. You have a cold cold smile.

You were burned, you were about to burn, you're still on fire.

Here you are in the straw house, feeding ice to the dog, and you wanted

an adventure, so I said
Have an adventure
.

The straw about to burn, the straw on fire. Here you are on the TV,

saying
Watch me, just watch me
.

2

Four dreams in a row, four dreams in a row, four dreams in a row,

fall down right there. I wanted to fall down right there but I knew

you wouldn't catch me because you're dead. I swallowed crushed ice

pretending it was glass and you're dead. Ashes to ashes.

You wanted to be cremated so we cremated you and you wanted an adventure

so I ran and I knew you wouldn't catch me.

You are a fever I am learning to live with, and everything is happening

at the wrong end of a very long tunnel.

3

I woke up in the morning and I didn't want anything, didn't do anything,

couldn't do it anyway,

just lay there listening to the blood rush through me and it never made

any sense, anything.

And I can't eat, can't sleep, can't sit still or fix things and I wake up and I

wake up and you're still dead, you're under the table, you're still feeding

the damn dog, you're cutting the room in half.

Whatever. Feed him whatever. Burn the straw house down.

4

I don't really blame you for being dead but you can't have your sweater back.

So, I said, now that we have our dead, what are we going to do with them?

There's a black dog and there's a white dog, depends on which you feed,

depends on which damn dog you live with.

5

Here we are

in the wrong tunnel, burn O burn, but it's cold, I have clothes

all over my body, and it's raining, it wasn't supposed to. And there's snow

on the TV, a landscape full of snow, falling from the fire-colored sky.

But thanks, thanks for calling it
the blue sky

You can sleep now, you said. You can sleep now. You said that.

I had a dream where you said that. Thanks for saying that.

You weren't supposed to.

Chemical names, bird names, names of fire

and flight and snow, baby names, paint names,

delicate names like bones in the body,

Rumplestiltskin names that are always changing,

names that no one’s ever able to figure out.

Names of spells and names of hexes, names

cursed quietly under the breath, or called out

loudly to fill the yard, calling you inside again,

calling you home. Nicknames and pet names

and baroque French monikers, written in

shorthand, written in longhand, scrawled

illegibly in brown ink on the backs of yellowing

photographs, or embossed on envelopes lined

with gold. Names called out across the water,

names I called you behind your back,

sour and delicious, secret and unrepeatable,

the names of flowers that open only once,

shouted from balconies, shouted from rooftops,

or muffled by pillows, or whispered in sleep,

or caught in the throat like a lump of meat.

I try, I do. I try and try. A happy ending?

Sure enough —
Hello darling, welcome home
.

I’ll call you darling, hold you tight. We are

not traitors but the lights go out. It’s dark.

Sweetheart, is that you?
There are no tears,

no pictures of him squarely. A seaside framed

in glass, and boats, those little boats with

sails aflutter, shining lights upon the water,

lights that splinter when they hit the pier.

His voice on tape, his name on the envelope,

the soft sound of a body falling off a bridge

behind you, the body hardly even makes

a sound. The waters of the dead, a clear road,

every lover in the form of stars, the road

blocked. All night I stretched my arms across

him, rivers of blood, the dark woods, singing

with all my skin and bone
Please keep him safe.

Let him lay his head on my chest and we will be

like sailors, swimming in the sound of it, dashed

to pieces.
Makes a cathedral, him pressing against

me, his lips at my neck, and yes, I do believe

his mouth is heaven, his kisses falling over me

like stars. Names of heat and names of light,

names of collision in the dark, on the side of the

bus, in the bark of the tree, in ballpoint pen

on jeans and hands and the backs of matchbooks

that then get lost. Names like pain cries, names

like tombstones, names forgotten and reinvented,

names forbidden or overused. Your name like

a song I sing to myself, your name like a box

where I keep my love, your name like a nest

in the tree of love, your name like a boat in the

sea of love — O now we’re in the sea of love!

Your name like detergent in the washing machine.

Your name like two X’s like punched-in eyes,

like a drunk cartoon passed out in the gutter,

your name with two X’s to mark the spots,

to hold the place, to keep the treasure from

becoming ever lost. I’m saying your name

in the grocery store, I’m saying your name on

the bridge at dawn. Your name like an animal

covered with frost, your name like a music that’s

been transposed, a suit of fur, a coat of mud,

a kick in the pants, a lungful of glass, the sails

in wind and the slap of waves on the hull

of a boat that’s sinking to the sound of mermaids

singing songs of love, and the tug of a simple

profound sadness when it sounds so far away.

Here is a map with a your name for a capital,

here is an arrow to prove a point: we laugh

and it pits the world against us, we laugh,

and we’ve got nothing left to lose, and our hearts

turn red, and the river rises like a barn on fire.

I came to tell you, we’ll swim in the water, we’ll