The One Percenter

Remembers the girl who would lift up her gypsy skirt so high, shoeless gas pedal mama, “Hold it right there!”  skirt’s up, legs, thatch, a gamine shanty irish, dickens pale, thin as a dulcimer string, blushing from her shoulders pink to her navel, thin lips pressed together, soundless, all he wanted to do was give and give.

Opened her mouth then, and without song unhinged unleashed a fury of sound, cacophonic, he never did fathom all those years of recorded voices, dictated commands, nothing compared to the fussy, fussy for words slipping her lips. Desperate, sometimes lovely words stacked upon each other, row planted upon row until he couldn’t remember where she came from, her eyes blue, gray, stormy? “Get your muddy feet out of my mind!” talking, talking always with a blaze for metaphor, ablaze with metaphor and innuendo, never silent, in his arms at night dreaming radio static, prowling similes, tight in his arms, young, thinking the world would keep going, leaky valves, blown head gaskets, buried in the bible- treasured words. Yankees, hippies, gypsies, all of them/ none of them flavored her speech with cloves, yarrow, rosemary, bread baking in a wood -fired stove, and he bared- chested, less than forty still, cut it, hauled it, chopped it, spilt it, stopped it, for this and the stone masonry walls from Trinidad to Creede, the only way to quiet the voices, the voice, his own voice at the decussation of the pyramids where not one ever returned from. Babylon.

Decades, now, of night, stars, snow, girl long gone, changed, gray fox, gray pussy, gray mare? Recognized by the sound of her voice familiar along the pathways, real, crossroads, ditches dug, walls built, tumbled; built anew. Broken teeth and bones, buried memories, dug again, tunneled, channeled, washed and bleached and ironed with lithium and someone else’s dogma. Way of this one- percenter dug his grave, himself. Asystole. Quiet is down, grounded. Hearth stone, head stone, chiseled with a chipped peacemaker.
Whisper goodbye, seldom seen. It was love you never heard the likes of.

Margaret Sanger and Her Friend Elizabeth Kubler-Ross

Taking tea for a fortnight
Under a starry ramada
Near Guadalahara
The topic of Eugenics
Never came up. Or
If it did we didn’t over hear.
“It always reminds me of Hitler.”
Said Liz.
“Don’t be a fool!”
Said Mags.
“It should remind you
Of John D. Rockefeller,
you see;
He would silently fund us.”

But who massaged her fundus?

Bulletproof

“I must pack.”, she thinks, yet she’s been packing all day; knits and wools, denim, long johns, clean chonies, chonklas, hair shirt, memories, broomstick skirts, tampons, cat hair, a suede jacket, every piece of downy fringe she ironed individually, bereft, mad.
“He must think I am made of clay.” she thinks, and “They are all mad.”, the anxiety intractable.
“Would he give me a chance to say it?” she wonders.
“If the plane falls from the sky, then what?” She imagines falling ever so slowly, gently, a smile at her lips, wicked wind, her skirt above her ears, the sound romantic. But the landing, well now that would be different, wouldn’t it?  Brittle, sound hollow, sound deathly.
He may shoot at her like a coyote. “Bulletproof.” But no, not really. How many times has she told him that loudly? But the voices, a voice, his voice internal, what do they all tell him? He can’t distinguish. Misinterprets. Is it a sex or gelatin? A woman or a frog? Love or lust? Cruelty or reality?
Time is coming now but ever so slowly. Cruel time, runs out, leaves her here alone. She’s waiting for this time to come, still waiting, yet it’s not here yet. End of winter, a spring, all summer, not yet here, as hours creep, minutes break down and cry.
“I must pack.” Silks to undress by, alchemy, fever, hairpins, whispers, bread crusts and diabolical regret.

Blindfolded

Blindfolded

t.m.m.larkin



Now
This day can fold into the next, seamless like skin.
It is the
neglected
Month of May
Dead snake season. We’ll find one on every back road.
Gopher or rattler?
Only way to tell is up close.
I think,
“Hands off!”
I think,
“Chop off the head with a short handled shovel.
Even the dead ones have venomous fangs”
I see
acres of fawnbrush and sand
as seamless
as my skin.
Firs that smell of vanilla
when their needles are crushed under foot.
Olive trees,
Succulents scorched by the sun.
I hear
The glass -colored ocean break,
already cold.
I realize
no one remained in the back seat when
we spun,  valves punching through the pan, a forward tumble, pushed by that seldom thought of prince ,
gravity. Front seat was displaced by back seat. Fence suddenly showed up where back seat had been.  We had rolled seemingly smoothly as if on a parade float, but not silently. Banjo strings broken,
the glass ocean
must have shattered despite seat belts locking us in
an embrace.
Sour brown bottles tumbled.
I heard
screaming with yeasty breath.
I wanted
to wash my hands
but there was
not any soap;
just
light, blood, flesh. The road
full of snakes,
some writhing, and flies from as far away as Gilroy, even. Horse flies,
biting; sticky,
I guess.
My skirt’s sticky. Our planet
feels cut in half. Prince Gravity
hides once again.
All is still.
I fall
to my knees.
Not to pray.
I heard ,then,
the radio, alive,
like yeast in beer. Crackling voice over, and out loud.
“Make
an elegant gift!
Slit the belly
from tip to tail.
Nail to a board. Scrape off the meat. Pour on a whole
box of salt.
Leave in the sun. Cowboy chic accessories…”
I ask
“Did you hear?”
Laughing, I stand.
Dima is not smiling.
Picking up his scattered teeth,
He tucks them
into
a snake skin clutch.
Standing then, beside me pointing.
“What does that sign read?”

Now, o now in this brown land
Where love so sweet music did make
Where two shall wander hand in hand
Forbearing for old friendships sake
Nor grieve because our love was gay
Which now is ended in this way (1)

“Someone
is buried here.”
“No.”
The sign
So old, weathered,
makes me forget
what I needed to grieve.

I see
the cantina
down the beach, hear stringed music,
contralto, horns. Trumpets; several, by the sound.
We walk
along the sand. Family picnicking
on a blanket.
Young man,
dark hair.
Wife lovely,
smiling up to the phantom clouds. Voices from kids frolic or screech. Bees sting.
Flies buzz.
The singing, soft
as a pleasant light, beckons.
The sea
is not blue,
not gray.
Holding hands quietly.
“Go no further.”
Standing now,
he is wearing
a uniform,
I see.
Border guard.
I point.
“The cantina!”
“If you take
that path
you must return through Tijuana.”
But so Far!
The sun will
soon melt
so very sweetly
into the
vacant sea.
We don’t want
to walk to Tijuana
In a blood crusted narrative.
Turned back,
I see
the same sign now reads:
Bienvenidos a Mexico.
Tiempo no es linear.
I am curious.

Lydia
is at the cantina waiting
whispering,
dead
these so many years.
Glad to see her, boisterously shitfaced, beautiful. Kisses Dima. Leaves lipstick.
“Vampire Red.”
she says,
“So I’m off! Try to catch me!”
I say
“Wait for me!”
“Finished waiting.”,
she replies.
Hitchhiking
away from us
for the weekend,
a fortnight,
a decade.
Thumb out,
snow falling,
light dimming,
stars reeling.
A Ford, a Jaguar, another Ford. Datsun. Cabriolet, horse drawn!
I stand
watching her
for a week
and a day.
A helicopter alights. Astounded, we watch it land,
almost too quickly
to marvel at.
“Have you ever?” asks Dima.
“Never before!”
I reply
“Jinx!”
“Hush!”
Up again
to fly over
Fryer Hill,
Harrison Avenue, The Silver Dollar. No Moon,
as the Sawatch
rips a jagged
gray horizon
from the bottom
of the sky.
I feel
she know the best,
the most, secrets.
“Goodbye!”

Dima’s head
buried in pillow,
half asleep.
Arroyo Seco.
We’ll
camp on this precipice tonight.
I ask
“Is the car in Baja?”
Yawning. Winking. Pause.
He has fallen
asleep;
off the cliff?
I wait.
Gravity yanks
my ankles.
He answers,
“Leadville, I think.”
He’s still inside me,  gypsy wind blowing scrub oak,
not quite dark,
I see
The tent
from the inside
the color
of cinnamon.
He whispers,
“What if consciousness
is a virus?”
What shall I answer?
Or when?
“Then what would you be afraid of?”,
I say.
But I am thinking,
Gravity.
“The way
I am self aware;
the way
I know
I’m sentient.
I can see myself as another self tonight”
He doesn’t sound like himself.
“You are only yourself.”
I say.
He replies,
“Where is the comfort in that?”


Sleep hard won.
“Are you awake?”
She asks.
“I am now!”
I’m blustery.
Mother. Babushka.
“You
burned the rice!” scowling, she says
“Again.”
Thrusts Ian to me, squalling.
“He’s hungry!
I nurse.
Her hard eyes
haven’t  yet smiled at me.
She twists
back to the mirror. Faded freckles.
Lips thin.
Braids her hair briskly,
turns it tight
like birch.
She really only
sees me
as disappointment.
Yet I still have missed her.

Ian and Love
in the backseat. Pupils so dilated
no light goes in
or out; they see
only each other.
Air can’t contain their smiles,
their sighs.
Suddenly
he screams,
crying,
“Don’t stare!”
I’m not sure
where he is pointing.
“I am only
reading you, my son.”
He doesn’t hear.
I want him to;
want him to.
He will stay behind. The girl,
Love, survives
the wreck,
deaf to the echoes.

Dima’s head
on my shoulder, fallen asleep
at the drive-in.
Damn film
is so grainy,
as if some
vaseline smeared
on the lens.
I watch us
slam down beers
behind Tania’s barn.
I remember
we wanted to
drive to
Point Lobos.
Hot day.
The smoke
from our cigarettes
acting like a blindfold.
Magpies eat carrion in the haze.
This must be
one of those American fairy tales.
At last,
I can see myself.
“The cinematography
is phenomenal”
The loudness of the drunken!
Dima awakens. “Now you’ve ruined it!”, he says.


I slide
off the gurney.
Walking down
the hospital corridor,  I stride as I
I shrink,
millimeter upon millimeter.
Actively reaching skyward, I think, Autonomic nervous system blink blink. What will I do without sneezes,
without startle,
without orgasms?”
gravity is
no longer pushing;
he is pulling
me sky high
I brush
the dusty ceiling
with my blackened toes.
Comfortable,
it feels like
my tribe is calling.
Prince Gravity
kisses me
with cool blind lips.
“Let go.”
He pleads.
It’s a comfort to me.
I feel it
in real time.

I let go.



(1) from James Joyce
stanza 32; CHAMBER MUSIC
1907