Four Poems

Birds & Bees

While driving 
in our cherry red 
1991 Toyota Celica
convertible, top down, 

the road dust & Marlboro 
smoke swirling in the hollers 
as we race past, Pa notices 
I’ve reached puberty, says, 

I’ll only tell you this once: 
marry rich; marry old; do your best
to get pregnant, then divorce him
so you can take all his money
like your Ma did me. Don’t 
sign a pre-nup, & 
whatever you do, don’t 
be one of those Welfare Queens 
buzzing around the benefits 
office like your mother, hand 
out at the church food bank, 
the toy drive, scamming kids 
out of their Christmas presents.

If you insist on college, I won’t 
stop you, but take it from me—
you won’t learn anything there 
that you can’t learn here. 

Your mother, she was gonna be 
a key punch operator before 
that went the way of the dodo—
took the classes and everything
over at Scott Community—
and me, well, I was gonna be
a writer and an electrician, but kids—
you know how it gets with kids.

I’m just saying, 
as a man 
and as your dad, 
being too pretty 
is just as bad 
as being too ugly, 
and you’re too much 
like your mother 
and your sister, God rest her, 
and the men out there 
are too much like me, 
and really, you’re too 
                              easy
you gotta work 
on your boundaries;
don’t be so 
                              open—

so damn Iowa Nice
or they’ll see you
as open for business
if you know what I mean.

Are you listening to me, 
Rachael—
I mean
Skylar—
God damn it.
Are you listening? 
You need to be 
writing this down.

It Doesn’t Thrill Me Half as Much

“This search for what you want is like tracking  something that doesn’t want to be tracked.”
                                                            —Fred Astaire

It’s summertime, 
so the mayflies have come 
in swarms. 

There is no clean air left, 
this close to the Mississippi, 
so you breathe them in 

and they nest in you 
for three days, 
fucking. 

Their whole lives 
are fucking, then dying, 
and so is yours. 

Night and day, they dance 
the dance their biology choreographed
while Fred Astaire sings of heaven.

Summer has come 
like a hot compress 
to your forehead; 

it seeks to soothe the soreness 
all your youthful play has left you. 
Look at how we sing 

our sorrow songs, 
together lost, but armed 
with maps 

tattooed on us by our mothers 
and fathers to guide us 
whenever we wander too far 

off the road they’ve stitched. 
Look at how we never find 
our way back home; 

how we have no home left.  


Shote’s Head [1]

The hunger / raises me up
from the slab / 
                     so I root

                     hungry for brains—
for cock—
                                          for thought—
what once was 
                                          and wasn’t /
for an apple in the teeth / red 
delicious / for color

                     so I uproot / quite tender 
the pig must be very fat, nicely cleaned / tied
                     to a spit and roasted, spinning 
round / what a pig! 
                     tied to a tree / used 
for target practice / what a woman!
                     Mince the tongue and chop
the brains small / I follow my nose
                     to slaughter / Have the heart roasted            
to put in the middle / lay the liver all around
and garnish 


The Art of Carving
  

no one wants to be the one to cut it apart:
            the rain makes the must mustier, 
            and I’ve been puppy dog 
            and baby doll to him too long  

they have taken what’s before me:
            all those red dresses
            my body bright

they have taken what’s before me, and
            all I got was Canine Crunchies in my arm 
            garlic in my heart—

my blood is oil  
            boiling grapeseed, 
            rapeseed, canola— 

my throat a saxophone,   
            my heart keyed up— 

rest, rinse, repeat:
            the must musts on,  
            and my Muriel bleeds  
            when you tickle her; 

            there’s so much of it,  
            and it’s so, so pretty 

so many pretty things:  
            my father’s thumb 
            this brailleskin twilight 
            meat thawing in a sink 

they have taken what’s behind me:
            my wooden lung 
            swollen with wet  

            my barnacle feet 
            keelhauled clean

here’s looking at you, kid
            you dreamed of escape
            but you returned


[1] “Shote’s Head” borrows the italicized language primarily from a recipe of the same name found in Mary Randolph’s The Virginia Housewife, the first regional cookbook published in the United States, though some of the language also comes from other helpful advice found in the “To Roast A Pig” section. 

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