Bury the Lede

I.

It looks like you're asking the reader
whether we should draw connections between
real beauty and trash.
Don't take the audience for granted.
It's clear when you yawn in their faces.

II.

Where should I put
the fucking citation?
And should there be a footnote,
so sterile and isolated,
even though it's so often skipped?
Why do I even bother?
There is such a thing
as a stupid question,
right?

III.

I bury the lede deep in my chest cavity,
deep in the recesses,
where stale water pools,
stagnant and shallow.

I bury the lede under freshly-fallen leaves,
soft and normal and unassuming.
With chapped hands, I rake over theories
and false impressions.

I quote directly when it is possible, but otherwise
make shit up as I go along,
string details together like popcorn on string,
garnish my values with hard kernels of truth.

Who am I to judge you?
I tip-toe around questions,
and yet I ask too much of my reader.

Poor bastard.

Mantis

Break my body --
hold my bones.
- Pixies


My life: the ashtray.
Leave your gum,
leave your cigarette,
leave your
temporary pleasure.

I can't win, really.
I'm someone's favorite, but not really.
I'm someone's wife, but not really.

Crumpled newspaper, the taxing of my youth,
I waited until the headline ran,
until forever became a hypothetical.
"I want you to be
the mother of my children," he said,
and then he locked the door.

November 12

It is sort of like divorcing
the sparrow from her twine, her wisdom.
It is sort of like presuming
that the wind will blow
all of our courage away.
My mouth -- the widest,
coldest cave -- welcomed
no sparrow, no wind.
No more shelter, no more notes carried
only to hide modestly
among the garbage
that has gathered there.
It is sort of like that,
only more dangerous, more public,
a tale bifurcated --
forks in the path, both sides sharpened.
It is sort of like all of this,
with a vague amount of certainty,
like the buffalo being led off the cliff.
The twine floats on the wind,
so careless without purpose,
without creating warm nurseries.
Maybe it is sort of
like that, with winter coming
and not enough nourishment to survive.

Access

Drowsy, hungry, longing for the night
where I'm comfortable.
No one can see my body in the dark.
There seems to be some confusion:
You ended it, and yet you are the victim.
I am the villain, shielding my face, my identity.

When the church bells sound,
that's the gun shot that forces me to run,
to tell the truth,
to be horrible and blackened and small.
Such is the danger of denial,
and my fingers lose sensation from holding on so tightly.

Didn't I comfort you?
Didn't I hold you away from the rain?
Wasn't I beautiful?
No.

Looking at the end
of the tunnel, you aren't there, waiting.
You aren't there, feebly, clumsily
holding the torch, the candle, the whatever.
Instead, you're grasping onto a figure
of speech, of enlightenment, of anger
and I am left, the monster,
fumbling in the dark,
where it's comfortable.

Baltimore

Love is dangerous,
a pistol still hot
from firing.
I was always good
for a laugh.
I was always good
for something.
When the rain
crept into my heart,
I didn't close
any windows, but I did
shut my eyes.
Love is cruel, like the crow
pecking at my windows.
Love doesn't want,
love waits
too damn long, curtains drawn,
cobwebs forming
to fill crevices
where wonder should be.