Dear Debaser
after the Pixies’ Doolittle
There’s nothing mild about you, nothing tame,
everything’s amplified and wild.
Take the wave of mutilation that is your hair, hacked
in handfuls with a butterfly knife. Take the black skull
you’ve Sharpied onto your own glass eye.
In short: you creep me out.
The giant keyhole of your shadow
sends a wind through my body. Every time I see it
I’m reminded that I bleed, that I’m a soap bubble
wobbling over a cactus garden.
I’m comforted by the knowledge
my friends feel the same way. Within our circle,
“Here comes your man” is code for “Play possum
until the air smells like primroses again.”
Dead is how you’d like me,
a calligraphy of bones is how, just one more
monkey gone to heaven.
Not yet, Mr. Grieves—
Crackity Jones tops your to-do list,
followed by Maryanne Meth, lift her glass pipe
to your ear and you’ll hear the slow
ocean of her voice, singing La la love you…
Nobody’s unaccounted for. Your roll call
goes something like: No. 11 Athlete, No. 12 Vegan,
No. 13 Baby, No. 14 Yoga Instructor.
Am I right? Do firearms have firewrists that bend
firehands? Is it not you who pulls the trigger
whenever someone says “There goes my gun”?
Hey. Answer me. It’s two in the morning
and the world’s too quiet, mute
as the moon, which floats above my neighbor’s roofline
silver and gibbous and pockmarked, I keep forgetting
some craters were made from asteroids
stage-diving across our galaxy,
faces aflame, screaming Gouge away!
Options
There’s Rogaine, Propecia, Tricomin, Folligen.
There’s a comb over, raking what you’ve got
to a spot not bristling. There’s hats:
baseball, fedora, ten-gallon, sombrero,
derby, beret. There’s a tattoo artist
who’s needled brows on a woman tired of tweezing,
a burly man who’ll give your scalp
the illusion of locks.
Have you considered a wig? Its wee brother
the toupee? Have you contemplated
hair restoration
or do you think a dead man’s thoughts
would burrow into your brain? Seriously, stop
dwelling how time is pushing
a mower over your cranium.
This is only one of a hundred-plus ways
our bodies wilt. These
are your options. The other: live forever.
This Be The Cure
You fuck yourself up. Ask your brain.
It’s on you: everything you feel.
Here comes a truck hauling some pain,
And there you are behind the wheel.
One response
I remember coming back to my dorm room and my roommate said, “Your girlfriend is on the radio.” And she was on a radio show with this poet named somehting like David Hernandez, who was being interviewed and who let her read one of her own poems. I ran over to the radio station because I figured this couldn’t be good for me, personally, and she introduced me to the poet. And I said, “Are you going to get her published?” And he said, “I thought I would show her the ropes first.” Ha!
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