Proxemics
Who didn’t love you in your Twisted Sister cardigan?
When the meteorite decimated Bucolic Hills Gift-Mart
you thrashed your cittern in the well of smoke.
Chest painted with myths of the flood, you aced
your long division. Fucking your octahedral boyfriend
hurt, and you said, Mom, make me unangled.
We all agreed this was unfair. You can
only demand so much from the clerk weighing
your bananas at the Super Duper on Treadaway.
Your mother already came back from the dead,
remember? She smelled unnice and was
no mathematician. She was trying to do you a favor
but you thought she’d be happier in the field of lunatic
poppies. She was, and good decision, and no one
begrudges you this choice. Who didn’t love you
in the chevron in Madagascar watching the world
ruin itself in a southeasterly direction? In a Chevron
in Mississippi you ripped out your lungs
and bellowed for digital replacements. Who didn’t
recall Scarlett O’Hara and plantations and hierarchies
of pain? The things you found in the refrigerators
of New Orleans that you weren’t supposed to open.
You weren’t supposed to open New Orleans, remember?
She smells unnice and is no mathematician. You were
trying to do a favor with your superb long division
but something hurts. Who didn’t love your sign
for “unequals,” even if the mathematics conferees
shooed you from the complimentary buffet? We all
agreed this was less than generous. We all agreed
you are greater than biscuits. Thighs embroidered
with myths of polar caps, you tracked a wolf
through the alleyways of Alabama. You coined
a new term for “winter.” You said, Mom,
I am melting, and who didn’t recall Oz? You wore
a pair of burlap wings for two weeks in December
and no one couldn’t cry. We all agreed we were tired
of being wet and moldy. This was the year
water was scary everywhere every year. Metal bands
weren’t actually made of metal. We discovered
this hammock of false equations and tried to rub away
ropy imprints from the backs of our legs but rubbing
didn’t help. This was when you revealed
your saxophone and your counteruinous plan
entitled “Old Seeds and Simple Addition.”
Remember? You gripped your cardigan tight.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Please, Follow Me
The sun sets on steel pillars in the Arizona desert.
The colossal squid captured in Antarctic waters
can sink thousands of feet beneath sea level, and rise.
Johnny Appleseed refused shoes but did not perch
a metal pot atop his head. Who argues we shouldn’t
build an embassy in Paris in order to intercept
messages from our distant scientific creators? I hold
hundreds of cloned thoughts in my head. I hold
three apples in my hand, and I can juggle. I hold
that my travels through time were more pleasant than my trip
to the shopping mall for knee socks. In the Arizona
desert I have bled from my thighs. Coyotes have wailed
for extra sets of legs. People have been told, You
are not people. You are exhaustible machines in false
moustaches and masks of sun. Steel pillars are not beautiful
in the Arizona desert. This moral judgment is not
aesthetic. Creosote is the patchy hair of the desert,
and combustible. Incombustible steel pillars are not
good conversationalists. The tour guide at the Alamo
wore a coonskin cap and could not answer my question
regarding the six flags of Texas. Remember the Alamo
is an impossible command. The human brain’s hundred
architectures need be multiplied by the earth’s
six billion humans, and still the equation for memory
is incomplete. I have counted 92 steel pillars
in the Arizona desert. I have seen uncounted babies
born with shriveled wings. Johnny Appleseed’s child
bride never is counted. Who argues we can’t love
the colossal squid? In the Arizona desert the horizon
is spilled with ink. The mountains are better
conversationalists than the Elks at the pancake breakfast.
This moral judgment is not unfair. The militiaman’s rifle
is always screaming, and what kind of conversation is that?
Taste is an abstraction. Steel pillars are made of steel,
and an abstraction. I ate too many abstractions
for breakfast. I pinned too many abstractions in my hair.
I looked pretty but people kept forgetting to respond
to my questions. The letters I write to my friend
Antarctica go unanswered, and I find this reassuring.
The steel pillars glint like spears in the Arizona sun.
They are always yelling about something. Crushed canteens
keep blooming like inexhaustible flowers in the scrub.
-----------------------------------------------
Amy Dickinson