from T(HERE)
The title wishes not to be pronounced.
There is something terrible, terrible with a capital “T,”
eating away at it all
In the horror, the buttocks of the peach were pink with
smooth fuzz enveloping the fruit
After white jaws clench delicious A hard rippled pit
resides inside
The grammar’s tense changed as often as everything else.
Emptiness stubborn refuses admittance Shreds of wet flesh
hang in disgust.
Sticky hands in the City playground hear every sound
The stank of ammonia piss by the jungle gym Peddling orange
Big Wheel thru projects skidding and laughing adrenaline toddler.
The park smells of dead brown leaves and horse shit
On the Bridal Path and under dark dry-stone tunnels, the walk
is kinder than joggers above ‘round the reservoir of turtles
and a shrinking exposure of algae and whatever regret swam over
the cold cyclone fence.
The peach blossomed beautiful At high noon the mother said,
“A beam of light.”
Transparency of memory Salt marshes Gullah
Beaufort, South Carolina
The United States Marine Corps The Sea Islands Beat up the shrimp
with the bottom of a Coca-Cola bottle: shrimp burgers and sweet-potato fries at The Shack.
And the crew boss with white gloves will check the picker
and his bin and call him on bruised fruit and tearing the spurs
off branches
What follows is of this cycle
The economic soil Winter recession
And employment up again in the spring.
The buses at 42nd St Port Authority
will always run
The subway will not breakdown
Newark is the splinter of New York and New Jersey: a corporate organ leaking capitalism, fast-food pollution and serpent highways
The craft of childhood On a rocking horse A photographer captures DNA
The pond [Shut up Holden!] Where ducks and sailboats float
the gray water and Alice in Wonderland smiles statue Neverlands
The zoo! Picking nose and staring at giraffes
Boston is an Amtrak away Tighter and colder than
a central nervous system left behind in Fanual Hall
of couples and high school trashcans Sad aquarium seals
and pathetic penguins squeal in the tourist glassy wetness.
The grass The fallow fort The hilly bunkers near seashore
Fish and chip breath and imaginary friends swashbuckling pirates
The rocks and sailboats The tipsy buoys The earth falling into
the sea and making love to it all, again, with salt
because
it’s the sadness
of sulfur, or
the fact that
suicides are just
statistics, that
makes me want
to love you, while
i still exist, and
fill in that empty
four-letter word
with all my blood
and breath
