aayoung
so he took her like an animal
but my father’s ghost wept
so she went to the men
like a good American
good people don’t want to believe
in visionaries good or bad
especially when you have red clay mud
starved stabbed scabbed over and over
on your grandmother’s dress from being raped just like her
from ft. Sumter to Wounded Knee
he’d never seen that color red come out of a living fertility statue
my veil is torn
the dog is dead
the natives have resumed their drumbeat
who can sleep
through the raging silence
of all our canceled parties
my parents were screaming
at each other
in Baptist curses
doors slamming
phones torn asunder
sounds of a home splitting apart at the roofbeams
my father throwing the floor model television out the front door
and one frightened sister
smuggling me out a bedroom window to another protective sister
that may not have all happened on the same night
it was so long ago &
this wasn’t constant
not your average weeknight at the Young’s house
but it’s always the first time
that matters most
a woman’s life
is too tenuous
delicate
billowy
spider web
close call on I-75
in preterm labor
on the way to the
Paris airport
in the rain
fragile
beautiful
precious
sacrosanct
finite
for bad friends
bad family
bad coffee
bad shoes
bad mattresses
bad jobs
bad husbands
bad debt
and bad dick
learn this by 30 for maximum
enjoyment
future
female
conquerors
of a dying planet
i
i saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by
thoughts of kissing me
sleep on disreputable futons
show up at hotel room doors
unexpectedly
.
just about the time
one of my gods said
i was coming close to my
howl
.
but i’m nowhere in proximity
.
upping the ante is perhaps required
my addictions too mitigated by motherhood
and the yolk of practicality
.
i’m not lesbian enough
i’m not disenfranchised
i’ve never been to france
i’ve never given anyone a hand job for a grant
ted hughes has not yet abandoned me
.
how tranquil
it must be
sailing along
in the good ship right
upon a sea of wrong
that’s the blistering irony
about know-it-alls
sociopaths
predators
and candy coated pricks
who demonstrate
impervious response
they have a choice
whether or not
they acknowledge
their dysfunction
yet they leave us
none
it was the moment
i felt the weight of you
that come hither look in your eyes
a crashing instant
when i contemplated
what we would be
we would make antony and cleopatra seem uncommitted
a passion so profound
it would negate my need for panties
i made the decision
not to want you
or the responsibility of your happiness
chose never to be the person
who complains you’re never around
and when you’re home don’t lift a finger
i never want to be your freshest regret
what a perfect disaster we would be
our neighbors would hate us
we would go to home depot
and choose to paint the bathroom an almost puce shade of armageddon
we would watch fatal attraction together and immediately run to ikea
for more lamps and cutlery
scratching vinyl to a screeching stop
speakers and clothing flying
through rattling windows
we’d brawl over a bourbon bottle
some june night
and threaten to cut each other
with the jagged pieces
of a kenny rogers and the first edition album
perpetually polar
fucking or fighting
either way it would be noisy
we would drive the sidewalk to drink
all the pearls in the world
would fall from their strands
we would tire of crying
you would invalidate my every previous love poem
our car would eternally be waiting to plunge
from an icy bridge
in the deep south
midwinter
because i threatened to jump out and through the door open to puke
and you swerved trying to grab for my
drunk ass
because we’d love each other more than we had collective sense
there must be a heaven for that