PHONE SEX

My mother always put on a posh voice when she answered the phone

unless it was his sister

Your sister is on the phone she would say.

His face would light up

like at no other time

and he would run out to the phone.

Grab the phone and put his hand straight down his pants.

Big smile on his face

He never put his hand down his pants when he talked to anybody else.

Guess he really loved his sister.

POLLACK

The young Polish girl on the beach told the same story to the young man she had just told to the polish girl

the only difference being that she told her in Polish.

All I heard was the pepperoni and the salami but it was enough.

The clouds have rolled in from the sea now

and I get up to go.

Just as well I have no desire to hear that story again

In English

or Polish

Pepperoni and Salami

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Mahbub

Once We Flew

That day at the spring afternoon

We flew in the sky light

Our companion was crores of stars

And lived there years after years

The stars are not as enlightening as we were

We floated and enjoyed all the beauty of the unseen discovered

A dimension to play and mirth

Nothing to dismay nothing to disappoint

When we stood on the shore

can’t be remembered

Now we play with a ball day and night

A missing light always hinders to throw at the right point.

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“Those That Play Together, Stay Together”

She smiled

and told me that

those that play

together, stay together

and I told her that

wasn’t true,

that popular sports

teams traded away

players all the

time,

some do to age

or injury

or decreased

production

or even locker

room chemistry

but they traded them

all the same,

and she pulled away

and said she was

just trying to be

romantic

which is why

I told her I had

no plans to trade

her

even though

we were in a

contract

year.

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what my tombstone should say

watched a woman

with down syndrome

flick a booger onto

the carpet of the

waiting room at

the doctor’s office

this afternoon

all the while an

elderly couple were

arguing about if their

daughter was out in

the car waiting for

them

i whispered to my

mother this is why

i’m killing myself

i also told her i

thought of what

my tombstone

should say while

in the shower

earlier

found the pleasure

in the pain

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the woman i love falling through empty air into the arms of no one

all afternoon these faded attempts at sunlight

these starlings circling bare trees

children crying in frozen side yards where the

dead are as useless as the dying and i am

moving through this maze of abandoned factories,

i am beneath the bridge at the end of town

near the palace of leaning bones and

i am twenty five years too late,

still dreaming of the other elizabeth, the

patron saint of regret, and i have stood in the

center of every lane of the freeway at

midnight at noon at 5:30 in the evening and i

was there when your brother jumped from

the overpass, was walking back from chrissie’s

house and it was october was the end of november

and fucking cold, saw his body briefly against

the bruised green sky, heard the squeal of

unseen tires and then it was twenty five years

later and i can’t even remember his

name anymore, can’t remember the warmth

of your body or the taste of your kiss and

all afternoon these failed attempts at

disappearing

this ice spreading through the veins

poison in the water, or on the

tip of the tongue

tastes too good to just spit out

and we thought that when the war was over, the blood would all flow

           backwards, and we were wrong

or living like a wounded animal, which

isn’t really the same thing as living,

but there you are in your collapsing hole

with your open wounds and your blood trail

here we are after 25 years of winter

½ a lifetime spent digging at the same

small patch of frozen ground with bare hands

low tide

faulty compass

and what i find out too late is

that anger isn’t enough

is that silence isn’t an alternative to

suicide, but a slower version of it and so

we scream

we make ourselves such easy targets

open the door and all of that pale, blinding

sunlight just blows holes straight through you

because you’re not here

two hawks circling up high in the

bitter sunlight, over the great sorrow of

empty fields, of rusted cars and silent

trailers, children nailed to their own

dead-end futures and, if you were here,

these would be my gifts to share,

these pale grey realities,

these silent accusations,

and i would pull you closer along

the edge of some two-lane road,

would breathe you in as the shadows

of clouds swallowed us then spat

us back out again

i would promise you nothing more

than all of the pain you could

hold in your small perfect hands

would tell you i loved you

if it was what you wanted to hear

stab wound blues

bluegrey taste of blood just

coming up to the top of howard

hill the empty fields the ruined

shells of burned out cars screams

of crows & of children not leaving

not arriving and this is where the

body of someone’s wife was

found and then down the other

side to the trailer you lived in

twenty years ago and i probably

told you i loved you at some

point and i probably thought

that i meant it but the sense of

urgency is gone i can count the

number of people whose pain i

care about on one broken hand

while i steer with the other and

it’s been raining since yesterday

afternoon & shows no signs

of stopping

the frightened child, always

this january sunlight on december snow,

all dim blue sky and frozen clouds,

all washed-out colors like

memory or dream

you are here

despite everything

you are loved but seen only

through dust-streaked windows

distance is the key

i am never close enough to hold or i am

always pushing you away

and we mistake confession for apology

mistake solitude for escape and

the days are all filled with long lists of

gods who would like to see us dead

the air thick with the

memory of gasoline

of cold engines grinding

themselves into dust

such stunted minds,

such crippled dreams

so many hungry saviors

with the heads of crows

only the warmth of burning witches,

but it’s better than no warmth at all