A year in: clippings
by Ariel Gordon
[ poetry - october 08 ]
I wanted to write an ironic poem
about the lazy black cat & the mail carrier
locked in mid-morning mortal combat.
The mail carrier's single feint was to refuse
to deliver to that house any more.
The cat's tactics are familiar & include
the growl, the stalk, the quick climb up calves
made wiry by walking
onto regulation navy & beyond
to slice at eyes; also, not blinking
when the camera's iris opened & shut
for the wink-wink second-to-last item
on Winnipeg's evening news.
Next I was going to cleverly allude
to the kicker - the mooncalf born with six legs
but able to gambol in the flat bright light
of mid-day Nebraska
because its two extra legs, knobby & newborn
don't quite touch the ground
but mocking bureaucracy is cheap sport
& deformations are just no fun.
I wanted to write an elegiac poem
about half-frozen blood, the alley it was spilled in
& the man who at the end
of a boozy night had his throat cut
by a friend & lost it
how the temperature dropped (like a body)
overnight the blood becoming just another pool
of salty slush on the asphalt
in the alley behind one of my old addresses
how photographers gathered the next day
to shoot bike treads, sneakers,
beaters in blood
because the fire service didn't bother
to wash it away until early afternoon
but we all know this is a bad way
to die.
I
wanted to write a tender poem
about you that marked the moment months in,
months in, when your dry furious cheeks
first wetted down
how the bruised pear between my legs
gave a final meaty contraction a glad twang
at this first drop in the bucket
but I don't remember when it was
& there is no poetry in sour two-day-old laundry
& greasy crumbs in the seams of my days
& I would still give just about anything
for a moment to myself
& oh fuck you just woke up -
