Tuesday, January 27, 2009

OPP: On Poetry in Progress

That What Sticks

Mexican everyday afternoon valley rains,
You should know- there is a formula
To falling apart unnoticed
Small girls study it
Eat themselves- pieces of bread
Or find the food they need on inside bones
That they’ll lick clean
After he leaves in the morning.

Afternoon rain, this is a formula
You have not studied
And it hurts you.
You must learn to swallow the word, Always,
Hold it in with breath and belly!
Because too many visiting feet
Stay dry. Thankless.

If I were loose mountain mud I might love you,
Because I’ve loved like that before,
Weak in the knees for the constancy of bruises
Always the size of a boy’s middle and index knuckles,
Always brief and torrential.
Blue yellows that will fall off, and rain
That will drip down to an unseen molten core.
Could we be any more stable?

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