The Best American Poetry 2014 (18 page)

when you hear
I love you
. It's only the nighttime

pouring into the breast's day. Sunset, love. The thousand

exits. The thousand ways to know your elbow

from your ass. A simple dozen troubled hunters

laying all their guns down, that one day

they may be among the first to step

into your devastated rooms

and say
Enough now, enough
.

from
Gulf Coast

Everything that ever happened to me

is just hanging—crushed

and sparkling—in the air,

waiting to happen to you.

Everything that ever happened to me

happened to somebody else first.

I would give you an example

but they are all invisible.

Or off gallivanting around the globe.

Not here when I need them

now that I need them

if I ever did which I doubt.

Being particular has its problems.

In particular there is a rift through everything.

There is a rift running the length of Iceland

and so a rift runs through every family

and between families as a feud.

It's called a saga. Rifts and sagas

fill the air, and beautiful old women

sing of them, so the air is filled with

music and the smell of berries and apples

and shouting when a gun goes off

and crying in closed rooms.

Faces, who needs them?

Eating the blood of oranges

I in my alcove could use one.

Abbas and ammas!

come out of your huts, travel

halfway around the world,

inspect my secret bank account of joy!

My face is a jar of honey

you can look through,

you can see everything

is muted, so terribly muted,

who could ever speak of it,

sealed and held up for all?

from
Court Green

You / I

take / nurture

my / your

bag / blood

and / and

pour / fill

its / your

contents / emptiness

on / from

the / the

sidewalk / sky

If / When

I / I

wear / undress

my / your

hoodie / skin

it / it

is not / is

in / from

danger / safety

it / it

is not / is

in / from

solidarity / alienation

it / it

is / is not

showmanship / reality

The / A

Interviewer / God

asked / answered

if / when

I / I

studied / neglected

how / why

Buddy Holly / Little Richard

disarmed / provoked

all / one

black / white

audiences / emptiness

My / Your

primary / final

album / silence

in / on

middle / infinite

school / repeat

was / is

Warren G's / Kenny G's

Regulators / lawlessness

“If / When

I / you

had / lose

a / the

son / moon

he'd / it

look / blinds

like / unlike

Trayvon” / anything

 Our / Your

children / ancestors

will / won't

be / be

responsible / forgiven

for / despite

the / any

debts / surplus

we / you

have not / have

paid / assumed

in / from

blood / myths

The / A

white / black

girl / boy

on / in

stage / reality

said / listened

she / he

prayed / knew

Trayvon / Trayvon

reached / left

for / despite

the / a

gun / prayer

from
Rattle

For the deer gut busted open splayed

on the gravel margin of the highway

to remind me and to horrify which are

the same when death comes to say

anything for dying is a song the body

is learning so thank you lord for this

enduring whir of days we ride the way

a chisel carves down deep as it glides

for being is a lathe and we are the turning

curving shape of what I come to praise

so thank you Lord for the edge of light

when the day is honed and all is bright

behind the eyes just before waking for

dream is a fire we are the lake of—

dream is the spire we are the church

of—and the days turn so fast meaning

rattles hard and nearly breaks off—so

thank you lord for what arrives today

crashing down without a warning like

a pick-up truck on the deer this morning

or the morning light lashing me while

the sun flickers churning through the trees

like a wheel splashing rays on the redbud

dappling this holy thing I stand beneath

and I stand beneath and that is all, for

green is the mind of the spring returning

and dying a song the body is learning

which I will not sing or step to although

every day—oh—that is exactly what I do.

from
ABZ Poetry Magazine

I'm Mussolini,

And the woman spread out on my enormous
Duce
desk looks teeny.

The desk becomes an altar, sacred.

The woman's naked.

I call the woman teeny only because I need the rhyme.

The shock of naked looks huge on top of a desktop and the slime.

Duce! Duce! Duce!
is what girls get wet with.

This one's perhaps the wettest one's ever met with.

Mussolini often did this,

Boots on, on the desk he worked at.

I'm sitting in my desk chair staring at
IT
and Oh she likes that.

She likes me staring at her box office.

Isn't everything theater? That's what's real.

I've got the face of an anteater

That sticks out like a penis to eat a meal.

I'm a chinless, cheater, wife-beater attending the theater.

It has to be someone else's wife.

Of course!

I live alone with my life.

One divorce for me was enough divorce.

I think of the late Joe Fox and his notion

That he couldn't sleep without a woman in his bed.

He also loved the ocean

And published Philip Roth when filthy Philip first got read.

When pre-spring March snow soft-focuses the city,

And the trees express their branches like lungs showing off their bronchi,

And the lined-up carriage horses stomp their hooves and whiten patiently,

I stay chained to my desk, honky honking honky.

from
London Review of Books

I'm the one who can hold a mouthful of salt.

Bring him here, the fool dressed in prison stripes.

I can pray for him, even though his eyes are wild.

I can de-louse the rat.

When I was a kid I invited them all to a puppet show.

There were no puppets; I'd planned no show.

Free beer, I said, and they came.

I've seen a puppet theater.

It resides in the black cavern behind my eyes.

Thoughts are puppets, dangling from their tangled strings.

Bring him here, the one spinning on gloom's rotisserie.

I'll section an orange for the wretched bastard.

I'll ladle him up a mugful of tears.

Free beer, I'll say, though there is no beer.

from
The Missouri Review

at McDonald's where there are no black people

and there's a multiple choice question

or white people about Don Quixote