Dust Up
The stakes here
are very high;
let me beginby giving
agency to the
smallest thing.The dust is
easy enough
to discuss;
after all
it's made
of shed skin
and the snake,
he’s fucked me
again with forkedtongue whispering
Please, someone
get this womana dick. Dear, I
have one everywhere
I look: my mass-produced lamp,
warm bulb
glowing usefullyon my desk
and, Oh,
fat neck
I hold embarrassed
of the guitar
I never learned
to play. I've broken
every promise
I've ever madeto myself, it's
a shame, too
lame to fixa popped string—
Would it be self-
indulgent to singI want to be
what's working?
Not a contriveddevice with which
a word stands
only close toa thing— merely
evocative of something
you felt oncein a wet dream—
but Truth I
personify hereas a She wondering
How does she
look? Something likeshe who wields
the scales of
justice, blindfoldedso she can't see
you trying to peek
under her robes—thighs of stone, hard
to penetrate
as the Sphinxwith her riddle
you think you
have the answer to.
The Gift
He found a flat,
brown, heart-shaped
stone, drewin red a smaller
heart within
the larger, scribbledI love you. It must
have once belonged
to some otherrock, chipped off
by time, which worked
to smooth it downto what had to be
used for confession
when found on the beachinstilled with our knowledge
of hearts, all crude
curves and linesreduced from far
more elaborate shapes,
prodigious rangeswithstanding steady beating
waves that by nature
break.
Good Morning
I woke to find your one gray hair
like lightning slice through the dawnof your head. We were facing the wall,
had formed a knot overnight. Half awake
I wasn't sure what I was looking at at first—
Soon I registered your snore, your shoulderfall. Felt your radiant heat. I pushed
the covers off then lay there nude and coollooking at the back of you, remembering
your face. When the sun lit your skull
through the blinds, that new shock
of white, the girl within me
died, bid the old crone
rise—
New Years in New Orleans
Marching at dusk,
they clutch Christmas tree trunks,
browning bodies dragged behind
like thoughts one forgot
or ought to forget,
so heap tossed,
that heap sprouting higher
past telephone wires strung
neutral ground around.
Mid City rat meanwhile
scratching toward pile
unnoticed, itself not noting
preparations for fire,
gas cans uncorked,
clock scanning seconds
toward annual flame.Sky turning darker,
turning black.
No stars for the rat
in there gnawing at
needles, wood rot soaked
for bonfire burning.
Beer cans blown
over grass. Greasy plates
spilling beef scraps
pulled or clutching bone.
Whiskey bottles drained
but for sips
swimming at bottom.Hot from drink, from fat,
neighbors peel layers,
winter coats mud-soaked
picnic-blanket style.
Glass hides inside
paper bags, spouts
peeking out.One flag, Confederate,
flies above ten flags,
American. Glowstick-crowns
cap sweated foreheads, silken
angel hair gone wind-knotted.Mouths yawn
calling out to the year,
nothing new but its number,
higher, as Christmas trees blaze
in heat guaranteed to breed
fear anywhere but here.
[Jen DeGregorio's poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in A Narrow Fellow, Breakwater Review, Cake, and Lyre Lyre. She has been nominated for a 2014 Pushcart Prize and is a recipient of the Academy of American Poets' 2013 college prize, the Catalina Paez & Seumas MacManus Award. She received her MFA from Hunter College (City University of New York), where she continues to teach. She serves as poetry editor of Chicken Scratch Lit, a new literary magazine that will launch its first issue this winter. ]
Copyright © 2013 by Jen
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