PULLING UP THE CORNERS

after Linda Gregg

—

said you don't love me. He was sitting
in a flannel chair, the gray behind him hardly
a kind of light. I said
          secondhand love.

                    Circle secondhand.

B/c how could I be first?
          Not his fault I couldn't run to keep up
with myself, flying
apart—

          On my chest a ribbon bloomed.
                    Italicize honorable for him.

                    Allow this parenthetical:

Meanwhile my watch continued
to break and we'd been waiting there how long.

                    Underline how long love.

Who is it he loves?
I'm not who I was.

Our breaths quickened as if in a race.

He said don't? but it was a question. Question
the light in the room, the chair, where
          I was standing.

                    Make stand bold,

but I wasn't. I broke down. He held
the baby, edge and center of everything.
          They seemed so far away.

                    Note the distance between points.


__

BREAD TO CLOCKS

The meaning of clock in dreams runs out
at the end of 21— "The dreamer
may be objecting," it says, then leaves off,
and I object since without the next page
I'm made frozen. Dreamt of, a clock
with hands still is death; with hands racing
is time running (out). The warning of the alarm
is also mentioned, but cuckoo must be
on the page following, and what does bird
mean in dreams, I wonder? Flight, maybe.
To teeter on a cliff signals a spiritual
fall—watch for men named Clifford.
Car is on this page ("see vehicles chapter"—
and I don't have that). Thoughtfully here
they've included catastrophes, cemeteries,
cannibals and certain cards which might mean
death, especially if spades. It's in the cards,
play your cards right. 21 is a carrousel of death
("see merry-go-round"), going around in
circles. Candy could be a warning.

__

LEAVING THE BODY

for Michael (1972-1983)

          1.

I won't imagine what I know: surgeons
          cracked your breastbone, found

a heart like a bird's, small,
missing one chamber.

A chamber,
room where the voice hears an echo.

          2.

Someone will ask, how many brothers?
I rattle, not knowing
how to count or claim you—

          Say one, that's a lie.
          Not the truth to say two.

But I can't say you're not alive.

           3.

Our father sat far in the deep wing chair
and could not speak.

A pail full of water dropped
from an upstairs window. I was awake.

I was asleep. I was asleep.

          4.

          5.

My arms make a brittle nest
to hold you. Your bones

          feel almost hollow—
I hear a sound in them

like wind. I cover
your mouth with my mouth

to breathe. The family says,
          put him down, put him down.

But then what would I own?
One brother, one

          brother and the fracture

that grows

____

"Pulling Up the Corners" centers on an intense emotional experience and takes as its model Linda Gregg's poem "Stuff," in which she repeats the editorial direction "circle": "Circle that.// Circle facts." The idea was to keep shifting the angle of perception. Thanks to Kary Wayson for the impetus to write this.

"Bread to Clocks": One evening I attended The Ruby Group, a writer's collective, and was handed pp. 20 and 21 of The Dream Dictionary as an exercise suggestion. Page 20 began with the entry BREAD and 21 ended with CLOCK. The poem was a gift.

"Leaving the Body" is the oldest poem of the group, one that I've been working on for literally more than a decade. The event of the poem is my younger brother's death, and that underwater, dream-like state of survival following. It's one of the hardest pieces I've ever written, and one of the hardest to get right.