PREQUEL

“Oh, but weren’t we lovely then?”
Alice Friman

How much time spent in search of foreshadow?
Interior: Apartment, almost no furniture,

Tallahassee springtime,
we cannot keep hands off each other,

cannot keep mouths to ourselves.
Spidering sunfall of late afternoon,

lazy sprawl of washed-out day,
corners of this room, that table –

in these shapes we pretend to see someday.
We already think of this moment

as our past: as the way we used to be
before we became what we will become.

My cereal-box Irish accent never fails
to make you laugh and we have no idea

we will never have this much sex again.
We are wasting only everything

with our fevered forward momentum –
think of all this poem has squandered.



ASYLUM

As if morning arrives and arrives branchingly,
as if each new thorn with its own drop of blood.
In here we are all super-villains –

as if the shadow could be anyone.
As if rain comes through open windows.
As if everyone else is asleep.

We run through every possibility,
we are emergency-prepared, drill-ready,
adrenaline-jazzed. As if cold turkey.

As if the laundry will wash itself.
In here, the smell of rotting fruit.
In here, the laughter. The boot and spur,

the hat, the mask, the tiny green pills,
the powder residue. There is always evidence.
As if we could ever stop reaching for each other.


 
LITA FORD EXPLAINS EPISTEMOLOGY

“Kiss me once. Kiss me twice.”

Knowledge that. Knowledge of. Knowledge how.
These are not always equal, in the way

that a kiss is not always a lie. You can know
that the guitar seduces but not why.

You may know what’s bad for you
without believing it. You cannot believe

how many times kissing ends poorly
but you know it’s worth it every time.

Truth is less important than music –
so long as the music kicks your ass.

Now that you know for sure.
Lean closer. Kiss me deadly.



WORD PROBLEMS: SOLVE FOR EX

If she is on a train
or bus or minivan
heading in the other direction
and you are likewise
stuck in a minivan life
but still moving toward,
how many new tattoos
will she have? If A
is a lurch backwards
and B is springtime
how deep is the sea
of regret? Spin left.
Spin right. How many
steps before you fall,
dizzy and growing
dizzier? If shadow
stems from sunlight
and creeps along
at the speed of grief,
how long must you wait
in the angled darkness
outside her new home
before the neighbors
call the police?
Identify the variables.
If you’ve always
bruised easily,
if you wish you looked
better naked, if your name
is difficult to spell
or say, will you have
time to call timeout
before the whistle?
If some other man
is wearing your golf shoes
should you abandon
the game or send him
your sand wedge
as a gesture of goodwill?
Ignore information
you do not need.
If a bird has wings
must it always fly?
How many seeds
in a pomegranate,
how much blood
in the average
human heart?
If a kiss means
more than tongue and lips,
will salt water
remove the stain?
If something rings,
answer.



THE WITCH IN LOVE (A PREQUEL)

The bath cools. The froth dissipates.
Our bodies uncurl, cleansed.
We rise and drip, our young bodies

all hunger and crave and defy the odds.
Eventually the odds will catch up, as they do.
Carpet burns, walls fold in on themselves,

roof dissolves like spun sugar.
There will be no one to take notes.
Already our grasp loosens. Already

we cease to exist. Already our replacements
approach. Ovens light, gumdrops melt,
already a gas leak – odorless promise.