it's official
summer is here
I baptized everything
at do-it-yourself doggy detail
the proprietor is a giant man with dredlocked dogs of all sizes
he said, When you shave a dog like this,
and we look suspiciously at the collie,
You have to go at it like you're scraping ice off a windshield
it's official
because Nickey made us a birthday salad
like she made last year, when I turned 28
& discovered bulleitt bourbon
Everyone cries on their birthday
& I was in love again or still with someone I'd loved 5 years before
and I left the bar alone
so the bar could be alone
so I could be alone with my middle-aged present
& my maudlin I-miss-you past
we drank the bourbon with salad sap,
rhubarb syrup
we took it to the river with us,
and a shorn collie
and our beached chairs
and I climbed into the river, under the water
and while I was inside her for those seconds
the hard seconds, my being very much aware of how
soft & warm
my innards are
how they're encased in a thousand knives stabbing you all at once
not to beconstatly reaching for titanic quotations, but
it was a bliss
a true moment where I wasn't terrified
because I am
soft & warm
at least inside, still.
and I surfaced, gasping, mouth gulping sun
my wet seal hair long down my back
the droplets on anxious tired flesh
trying, breaking, popping
in the light.
When I'm 29 I will police my emotions
I will make arrests
I will cuff me
I will throw me in the back
I will read me my hurried rights
I will put my heart on a leash
in a chokechain
& demand it next to me
legless, dragging along
taught tether,
slack tether.
that water was life-affirmer
my river hair, passion-confirmer
vehement future-asserter
(The other day she asked, how do you pronounce that word, vehemence, and we said it aloud a couple of times
I don't know that I do anything with vehemence, I said, and there followed the scoff of the century.)
When I'm 29 I will write down the names of everyone I've been in love with
and the list will crush the planet
the names will fall into trenches
into little graves
with headstones in ornate decay
How many people have you been in love with
Are you in love with anyone, now?
I used to ask two questions
when I was falling in love with someone, I'd say
Are you in love?
and
Are you an alcoholic?
It used to be that I'd turn away when the answers were yes
which they often were
but mostly I'd stay. Else how would I keep it all so relevantly destructive?
There are new questions to ask
like,
Do you love
or
Can you?
How many people have you been in love with
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 9
or
1,2,34
or never say forever, and never forvember me
nevember me forever
