Falmouth Academy
|
renunciation
I’m not sure how but
last Tuesday I told myself to stop
loving you and it worked.
where was the switch? and how
did I manage to get my fingers on it?
it was as improbable as locating
an acupuncture point
on the ear shell that triggers
and disables the electrical orgasm
of the intestines and taste buds
and sole of the foot and forgiveness.
something within me shuddered.
like an infant I spit up my love,
which was writhing and scallop-stomach-soft
on the soaked pillow, and with it I vomited up
the organs of risk-taking, levitation, innocence,
psalm-singing, empiricism, kite-flying,
and also that thudding bloody bundle of heart. |
Frontier Regional H.S.
|
This Millennium’s List
Defining features should be:
syringes (silver. white. black). & glitter should be a capital offense & rock 'n' roll can still be our whore but
stripped naked & tied to the headboard-
Even better: tied to a chair because beds are a luxury
We don't need, we don't sleep, we have uppers & we have computers.
Tell me that you don't write code to pay your rent that you don't dress in
geometric patterns & solid colors & eschew ruffles.
All the cute in your barrettes is planned & I'm jealous but all the girls have short hair & it's straight
because what can you hide in straight hair? The skirts are getting shorter: so are the screams: so are the waiting periods: how long do you think before I can get my handgun?
We will be soft city girls: we will be hard as diamonds & no one will question that our purses are smaller but hold a whole lot more. & we can maybe add it all up: balance out the lowest common denominators: find the perfect amalgam of what makes a 22nd century girl. & boys: all you have to do is remember the condom & maybe leave a cell number in the morning: does that sound okay? I can't remember the last time I thought there was more & I want to know why you keep hoping there is: why isn't this enough? Never satisfied & keep coming up with new reasons why not & words why not & that's the gist: the vocabulary of our century should be drastically overhauled
& improved & all of us down to bones down to where we are: higher centers of gravity. All we need is the palate: some sort of philosophical color scheme: all we need are screens
& buckles up & down our arms to release the hands we hardly ever use
& our hearts will be stones & stones will come down in the melting glaciers
& we will die colder than we lived & the irony will not be lost on us.
|
|
Walnut Hill School
|
|
Swimming Pool
Bow-legged, ripe-kneed, the children run
Through sticky-sour September air
That still smarts of chlorine from the basin
They swam in. Pond scum and ennui
Are autumn diseases; no clean, clean wash
For the wriggling bubblers who kick to stay
Afloat, no wet-blue kiss to baptize their sunburns.
Its rigor mortis is vivid and green.
Alone, one man mourns the heat waves,
Stippled with stubble and a wax-shiny pate.
Relic, archaic, his deck chair sags; he scowls
At Friday. He surveys the pool, the pool
Flat and stagnant as a neutered woman. He has seen God
Once, in grandmother’s swimsuit, contort, splash,
And corkscrew out like a bowl-shy guppy from its gravel
Grave. He sees the surface, its hardened case where
Mites and fruit flies breed together; the unnatural fur
And horror of it, and no one, no one to swim.
A giggle erupts. The children gather
with earnest school faces and itchy blouses.
Socks are shucked.
They cannonball in.
Algae surrounds their heads like a caul.
|
.JPG)
