Dorothea Lasky

When my dad first started to die All my mom could remember Was the time he kicked her out After they first started dating So that he could go play golf It is the sort of thing we all remember When we feel death upon us I remember he died twice And once in my dream I just had to see him all nursed and swaddled as if he were sleeping But he wasn’t sleeping I stood in the white light of the nursing home bathroom With the sun spilling everywhere on me And tried to talk to him, but never, he’d never listen People don’t always listen to you when they are dead But that’s not sad I get tired And I don’t listen to one Goddamn thing you are saying But that is because most of the time you bore me And when I am finally asleep it is really nice just to dream I have seen a lot of things in this life But one thing I saw most readily Was that despite his eternal heartbreak And girlish silliness Mike’s face was kind of sweet, a sweet wind He is going to think it is weird that I put him in this poem But I don’t think it is weird that I put him in this poem

I Students, look at this table And now when you see a man six feet tall You can call him a fathom. Likewise, students when yes and you do that and other stuff Likewise too the shoe falls upon the sun And the alphabet is full of blood And when you knock upon a sentence in the Process of explication you are going to need a lot of rags Likewise, hello and goodbye. II Nick Algiers is my student And he sits there in a heap in front of me thinking of suicide And so, I am the one in front of him And I dance around him in a circle and light him on fire And with his face on fire, I am suddenly ashamed. Likewise the distance between us then Is the knife that is not marriage. III Students, I can’t lie, I’d rather be doing something else, I guess Like making love or writing a poem Or drinking wine on a tropical island With a handsome boy who wants to hold me all night. I can’t lie that dreams are ridiculous. And in dreaming myself upon the moon I have made the moon my home and no one Can ever get to me to hit me or kiss my lips. And as my bridegroom comes and takes me away from you You all ask me what is wrong and I say it is That I will never win.

You have changed me already. I am a fireball That is hurtling towards the sky to where you are You can choose not to look up but I am a giant orange ball That is throwing sparks upon your face Oh look at them shake Upon you like a great planet that has been murdered by change O too this is so dramatic this shaking Of my great planet that is bigger than you thought it would be So you ran and hid Under a large tree. She was graceful, I think That tree although soon she will wither Into ten black snakes upon your throat And when she does I will be wandering as I always am A graceful lady that is part museum Of the voices of the universe everyone else forgets I will hold your voice in a little box And when you come upon me I won’t look back at you You will feel a hand upon your heart while I place your voice back Into the heart from where it came from And I will not cry also Although you will expect me to I was wiser too than you had expected For I knew all along you were mine

The man who murders his wife Is not the same as the man Who goes around and murders a stranger. I am a woman but I am not The same as another woman. Identity politics are bullshit. There is only the smart and the evil, The good and the righteous. There is only one color on the earth. In its infinite degradations it becomes music and mathematics. There is shit on my hands When I have been playing around with specifics. Love your lover. You are a lover. With each breath God has put a golden faith Upon the snowy mountains of the world. Here, look at the snowy mountains, Glittering with snow. They are wiser than you might think. And in your soul, the small grey animals Of the world sit and wait to do good For you, and together We are one thing, bleating a Somber, scurrying lullaby to Lapsing pinkish angels. Upon a mountain The angels smile sleepily as they stretch Their very long legs, thinking of us. And wise they might seem, us and the angels, But really it is only God who is wise.

Kissing the bankteller outside his stairs In Brighton, MA I cannot lie. I felt the hope That we once felt, if only for an instant O the lovely bankteller, like a moose he Rode my spirit quite outside my clothes And chrysanthemums sprouted I assure you Out my nipples when he kissed them. And the pureness of not knowing him at all Was really what we all feel when we enter this earth. There is a newness to the best things that cannot Be excelled and old things like old love die and rot. There are old ideas in the world that should be forgotten There are old ideas and old phrases that should at least Be recycled for others There are old plans now that should be new. There are old thoughts in your head, my reader, and let them die. Follow me, I am the crusader of the new My spirit is a plastic rod that channels all our births. And in the mouths of the little beasts, we shall find the great Ocean that spits up black bugs all glittering on its shores. You know there is an anthem to the ages. There is an anthem of the ages. This is that anthem This is that anthem

This is a world where there are monsters There are monsters everywhere, racoons and skunks There are possums outside, there are monsters in my bed. There is one monster. He is my little one. I talk to my little monster. I give my little monster some bacon but that does not satisfy him. I tell him, ssh ssh, don’t growl little monster! And he growls, oh boy does he growl! And he wants something from me, He wants my soul. And finally giving in, I give him my gleaming soul And as he eats my gleaming soul, I am one with him And stare out his eyepits and I see nothing but white And then I see nothing but fog and the white I had seen before was nothing but fog And there is nothing but fog out the eyes of monsters.

The rain whistled. A taxi brought me to your apartment building And there I stood. I had dreamed a dream Of us in a bedroom. The light shining upon us in white sheets. You were singing me a song of your sailing days And in the dream I reached deep in you and pulled out a cardinal Which in bright red Flew out the window. Sometimes when we talk On the phone, I think to myself That the deep perfect of your soul Is what draws me to you. But still what soul is perfect? All souls are misshapen and off-colored. Morning comes within a soul And makes it obey another law In which all souls are snowflakes. Once at a funeral, a man had died And with the prayers said, his soul flew up in a hurry Like it had been let out of something awful. It was strangely colored, that soul. And it was a funny shape and a funny temperature. As it blew away, all of us looking felt the cold.

To perform death is something only humans would do No animal would sit there With a blank look on its face Just because the camera is there No no an animal would look directly in it Or cover its face, like the overweight Woman in the picture in the magazine By the room where I keep my bed What people don’t understand about beauty Is that after all it is not fleeting After all it is so gross to be that way That someone sees among you After all, to call into question I painted my lips, my eyes Only our scholars know that To perform is to be malleable To perform in language Or was it The large purple insect I let in the room Or was it the furred face — the hippo or the gorge That I was the devil in the wood In my own bones that I knew the face That I took that face Was it midnight blue sky No, were my wings iridescent Even in these lines The voice moves you What sense of exquisite cause Thought Moves you past these lines Into conversation With the undead I don’t know That is something You will have to answer for yourself I came back to this place to help you And that I did Shoot sparks of green and gray Through time What skin sack I put myself  in I mean for what, why, Or who Did I manage to do this for if not you Lilaced thing The soft rustle of  beetle wings In air that is warm and gray And is not strong But there, is there to carry us past it

I saw him His body a very pale sea, almost green Soaring above me in a different sphere With gold wings He had a blissful expression One maybe he never had Certainly he was always smiling, somewhere When he died I had just gotten betrayed by a friend I thought was mine I forgave him Was more just said You live through any of it But what is the red shoulder we long to see I thought that I too would reach a great canyon My arms and legs blissed out Instead I blossomed inside Oh I loved his wife and children But they were still here with me When my father died he went straight up to heaven When the ghost died he stayed with us for a while I forgot to mention that the wings were gold and green And the winds were heavy They held his body Afloat in air as if in the ocean I forgot to say that when it was summer I too measured the red bell heads I said the hell with it All of it Heavy air will you hold me Suspended in the ocean of time Where I will never see you again My skin gold and green Sweet king, you left us I know it Dark is dark The darkness, darnit It surrounds With heavy air Arms and legs suspended The head

Blood is gushing everywhere From the lips of the bear’s face Out the elevators The children’s eyes When they are taken down by the ax The whole hotel is overtaken with blood You know I’ve started to think You really shouldn’t say Things you don’t mean The way you gushed into me And then that woman Who seems so much older, and isn’t Dear woman, I read your essay That fate could have been me Blood is gushing from between my legs I can’t feel a thing No really I can’t feel a thing When they propped me up They said, oh, she’s so strong But I am not I cry too I cried for you You left me, always, in the rain Dear love, you were so brave The blood exploded within you You were that whole hotel Could have been us I gushed Out came the blue-green cream