Not Again
The folder called Trade Secrets I read
as command, responding I WILL NOT. Which is
the best part of the secret,
the keeping or the telling? I need to know. I am leaving
and only one will fit. Better to pack light
than heat, hey now. No implement
of self-defense exists
that can’t be used against you.
Even the convex mirror in the trestle,
installed to show if someone lurks beyond
the station wall—even the mirror, that was how they got me.
They printed backwards books on all my clothes.
I couldn’t move. I stared at myself for hours.
***
I think I’ll tell my daughters God made breasts
by stubbing out His candy cigarettes
where the nipples now are. Saw love do like that
with the real things against street signs,
saw him strike a match on the zip
fly of his pants. Trampled the rice paper grass in the row
home yard like a blaze but did not catch.
***
Are married people happier
or are happier people married?
Though of course who wants to adore, who could
adore, sure, and stand
with this world, the ways it takes us
all and always, burns and failing
systems and a kind of truck
they don’t make anymore. Somewhere in the funeral
I realized my dress had pockets.
Little niece was craning DID HE DIE YET?
and we all tried to quiet her, though who cares, it was
anyhow just us.
***
Don’t cry. Men could once be broken
on the wheel for peddling cottons dyed impertinent colors.
Thomas Paine: GOVERNMENT, LIKE DRESS, IS THE BADGE
OF LOST INNOCENCE. Hey now. How far
we’ve come. I pull on stockings. Cloud my eyes. Mascara.
Watch the rain. This season, like a woman: everything runs.
