I
wrote
a poem
about that guitar
in the shape
of that guitar
with only six key words
repeating themselves
like the six strings of that guitar
but the 6 critics of that poem
sitting around a table
in the shape
of that guitar
didn't like it
because
they couldn't wrap their heads
around if the words
burden
point
slide
finger
praise
wrench
were either verbs or nouns
tabby, tabby, tabby, — one word
for each time i forgot to feed you.
you didn’t meow like the other one;
your method of saying hello
came through waves of licking.
how awfully dry that was,
the pink sandpaper of your mouth
edging my fingernails,
going and halting by some
some unimaginable force
you held a kangaroo’s pouch
for a paunch — the furry, meaty
wad jiggling like baby fat (when you prance)
or a bowler’s triceps after a strike.
tabby, tabby, tabby.
when you fell sick with a virus,
you were as lame as when i found you.
i nurtured you like a child;
for some reason, I nicknamed you,
kitty-dumpling, and when you rallied
the name forever stuck.
when you died, (i’m so sorry)
tabby, tabby, tabby,
i wept like the mother of a soldier.
under the lemon tree i buried you,
a refuge from oncoming traffic
of my own car.
not delicately defused, my blind bête noire,
not resistant to water yet lavishly gluttonous
and carried by monied pupils, flounders around
the tin can rain of yesterday’s roof, laughingly
unforgiven, seething, and blue.
misguided trance-like squid, why do you spill
your guts quietly like earthquakes on mute? fill
this vacant quandary with something akin to
dead bodies, at least, so I,
your prosecutor,
your defense,
your judge,
and your child,
feel some sense of remorse for what you have done
and what I soon will do.
little, creative, american tommy awoke with fright,
in the suburbs of his own security,
hearing the tiniest of prickly noises
like an insect cracking its knuckles,
he looked, found a maroon beetle under his bed,
named it after hitler, thereupon deciding
any conjunctions all capitalizations
would be extinct, vacuumed, dusted.
red-headed, freckled, american tommy awoke with fright,
protected in the white picket, alarmed and ready,
glancing wide-eyed at the swept wooden floor,
saw off-brown ants moving in a line
towards one of his socks, feeding off his alter-ego,
swarming the circumference,
he noted this would change his opinion
of his mother.
you can buy a name, name a meteor,
an underwater chilean anemone, name
a throat that hasn’t coughed yet, spiders
with unordinary apple stems for legs, all
becoming you immortalized like god.
not your average “she,” more the far-end tail of a lizard,
resolute, machiavellian, sometimes spiky and coy
she could dance like a magnifying glass in the sun, burning up
a bright, bright, floral red…
her pumpkin carving could have been a college level graduate course
and she would have taught, wearing some kind of Costello glasses
not needing to demand your attention… (because she already had it, of course)
she would have been strict but fair,
“estricto pero justo!” se dice
her voice could knock you out with one punch
the coup de grace viva voce
she could make the lilliputian feel significantly larger
simply by talking about it, for her voice could carve air
into words… she was a cowgirl without a ranch, she could,
after all, beat you at poker before the cards were even dealt
she made peeking at the infinitesimal
feel welcoming, a shower of love for all those who, too, were willing
to view like she did.
she could stand on her toes like a ballerina, no, just the big toe
exactly like a ballerina; she could and would cast anything aside
simply for a moment of purity, stripping away all the (bacon?)
nonsense for that one, tiny, seemingly trivial, moment.
