Indoor Activities

Anonymous Lyric

It was the summer of 1976 when I saw the moon fall down.

It broke like a hen’ s egg on the sidewalk.

The garden roiled with weeds, hummed with gnats who settled clouds on my

oblivious siblings.

A great hunger insatiate to find / A dulcet ill, an evil sweetness blind.

A gush of yolk and then darker.

Somewhere a streetlamp disclosed the insides of a Chevy Impala — vinyl seats, the rear- view,

headrests and you, your hand through your hair.

An indistinguishable burning, failing bliss.

Fairy Tales from the Web

Somebody who would never refuse money told me this —
about the syncretic effect when each person plugs
their attention into a field to read ad copy, let’ s just say
they become opened up and other beings can see into
their minds. This was considered a science fiction idea
to many people, but not to me.
In my negative space construction is always occurring.

Sifting in the Afternoon

Some people might describe this room as spare:
a bedside table and an ashtray and an antique

chair; a mattress and a coffee mug;
an unwashed cotton blanket and a rug

my mother used to own. I used to have
a phone. I used to have another

room, a bigger broom, a wetter sponge.
I used to water my bouquet

of paper clips and empty pens, of things
I thought I’ d want to say if given chance;

but now, to live, to sit somehow, to watch
a particle of thought dote on the dust

The Party

And that’ s how it is; everyone standing up from the big silence

of the table with their glasses of certainty and plates of forgiveness
and walking into the purple kitchen; everyone leaning away from the gas stove

Marie blows on at the very edge of the breaking blue-orange-lunging-

forward flames to warm another pot of coffee, while the dishes pile up in the sink,
perfect as a pyramid. Aaah, says Donna, closing her eyes,

and leaning on Nick’ s shoulders as he drives the soft blade of the knife

The Museum

A clamor, in the distance. A crowd running under the rain beating
down, between the canvases the sea wind set clattering.

A man passes crying something. What is he saying? What he
knows! What he has seen! I make out his words. Ah, I almost
understand!

I took refuge in a museum. Outside the great wind mixed with
water reigns alone from now on, shaking the glass panes.

In each painting, I think, it’ s as if  God were giving up on finishing
the world.

Translated from the French

Holy Shit

It used to be more private — just the
immediate family gathered after mass,
the baptismal font at the rear
of the church tiny as a bird bath.
The priest would ladle a few teaspoons’
tepid holy water on the bundled baby’ s
forehead, make a crack about the halo
being too tight as the new soul wailed.
We’ d go home to pancakes and eggs.

What Was It?

I was eating my dinner alone,
sitting on the living-room couch
watching a movie on TV for company
when the forces your covetous presence prevents
slowly crawled out in fibrous droves.

Without you to follow me with your
clipboard, or record the game my face plays,
masquerading as a cryptic territory
and your field of study, the energy maggots
turned the furniture into an ectoplasmic
mass with the weight of iron: soft but
resistant, a taut balloon against the hand.

The King of Owls

They say I am excitable! How could
I not scream? The Swiss monk’ s tonsure
spun till it blurred yet his eyes were still.
I snapped my gaiter, hard, to stuff back

my mirth. Lords, he then began to speak.
Indus catarum, he said, presenting the game of cards
in which the state of the world is excellent described
and figured. He decked his mouth

as they do, a solemn stitch, and left cards
in my hands. I cast them down.
What need have I for amusement?
My brain’ s a park. Yet your company

Mother's Closet

This is everything she ever closed a door
on, the broom closet of childhood
where no one could ever find a broom.
Here, layer upon layer, nothing breathes:
photo albums curl at the edges, books
she brought home from the library
where she worked, handled by thousands
of other hands before their final exile
where they’ ve waited, paper and more paper
taking in the ocean air, about to sprout.

Time in a Brown House

Sam paused on the stairs. He had forgotten a thing.
In Leland’ s room a copy of Thomas Merton lay on the floor.
The air was full of gnats of possibility. What was the story?
Sam looked at the clock twice. The day was dropping
softly away while Sam’ s sneakers made the wood stairs creak.
The wood was sure it was wood. Alice got home from the store.
The bags had to be unloaded as the day went and went.
Then the sundown kitchen grew quiet.
Sam crossed his legs one way, then the other way. He had chosen

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