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May 16, 2005
Suffix
I. Seasonal
I lancet a trench shovel
between the toes of a shrub,
and pace for Dad’s return.
His wife warns me about the other plants
present, and I sidestep in an effort.
I am almost there. With a foot
planted against the wood, it snaps,
splinters frowning progress.
Dad will be back soon.
His backyard is a garden of overgrowth,
creeper vines that look like spearmint leaves, by chance,
and synthetic blue orbs that sickle my face.
The waterfall is limestruck, and plastic turtles,
with large grins and plated fiberglass shells,
bob and haze in windy spring. This green shadow
smirks and thunders its baseness, from the roots up.
Dad went to grab some breakfast
before the 10:30 deadline, his way of thanks.
He shuffled his cigarettes, and shouldered a left arm
full of spiky brambles and cactus fruit.
He almost told me about it.
The roots of this Gila Monster of a bush, moist,
but not drenched, gum the ground, like a newborn
not yet ready to return. It is a common practice this morning,
to trench the perimeter of the monolith.
His wife comes back out to remove a vase
I almost touch. She smiles, gums flapping.
Her breathing machine purrs in the back room.
Her cats are noiseless. They pad up
to the screen door, their tilting ears picking up the sound.
Dad comes back, with a swearing stride
that he would not let his wife near. Picking
up a shovel, he fucks a curse that only
inanimate objects, such as plants, can deal.
He drops his cigarettes lower than the shadow knoll
that I am hopefully choking.
I ease it over and satiate. No time left.
Nearly drowned, we survey the course,
and sift thoughts. We are the same,
even in complexion, but there’s still
stifling roots to extract. Hair, full of
flowers and soil, stick up like a pineapple.
This green beast comes up
every Spring, buried alive, so full of water
it should have been easier to pull.
Nearly there. I pin that motherfucker with a pickaxe,
and hit it between the temples. It grunts and its bones crack,
and I pick it up on faith alone. Dad puts his back into it,
and I hear tendons thrust as we roll it on its belly,
whiter than air, engorged in severed worms.
Dad’s dangling left arm neighbors the pressure.
The blanketed growth we have lifted is thick and retains.
II. Occasionals
On the off-chance are you windfall or dust. Are you
there from time till. You sip and you pine, but you’re there.
You’re no stare at all. You trip on an
invisible rock, and glance again. You date
every nonce, but you do. Your attack
has left; you do that sometimes, too. You make
a prayer, with a thoughtless notion, and you
sprinkle water on your temples, just for fun.
You’re dancing and you are obvious, but only
when moments are.
You fuss and you tumble, in spurts. You pledge allegiance
to your conscience, but only when it notices.
You are defending a you of “me-time.”
You are not always, but only to inside parties.
You are not a catch-phrase, but not a weathervane, either.
You are not a sentence, not a diagram, not
a public speech, either. You are not there’s.
You are also willing to side, but only
with outside parties. You are also drinking
something someone similar somewhere
studied your face about. You are also outspoken,
overshot, and underpaid.
You also
are not humble; you also are not clever.
You are also not also unmanned, a man of inane
action, in minutes meant to mean memoriam,
while managing misconceptions misled by monotones
of middle-aged mono-syllabic moment-catchers
in the minutiae of my momentum, in monologues.
You are certainly not also never not also never also not never that.
And you try. Many times. To get it right. But it doesn’t.
Happen. So what. So you’ll try again. Right. I mean.
This does. Happen. A lot. So what. So what
if it’s not. So what if it’s not in simple steps.
So what if you don’t take breaths. So what if you tried
to quit. So if what you are saying is true, then it
never ends. It never ends. It ne-
ver ends. It never ends.
You never know.
III Condicional
Me di cuenta de mi error cuando saliste
En esperanza de una boda; ¿Qué pensarías?
Si sabrías, tratarías? Si me diste
un momento, solo contigo, podría
convenzer que los ojos cuyos las luces
verdes proyecta velos de mi alma?
Aun tu mamá sé que estos andaluces
de una “rebonita” son mis escamas.
Habrás ganado mucho dinero.
Es la verdad, sino falso. Que mágico
realismo tienes? Un bolero
de tiempo y espacio, eres rico
en tus gestos de expresión, y música
en la voz. ¿Hablarías conmigo
en la lengua qué yo prefiero? Cánteme
Posted by tony at 10:55 PM | Comments (1)