after Jennifer Moxley
1.
At last I saw the center of
my way—
I-5 in Orland, solo to
Bellingham,
thin sundown rays re-routed
by the visor.
“The count’s 3-1. It’s
Alvarez the closer,
Scott warming up, the
stretch, foul ball, Brigham
almost had that ... motions
for time ... and why
Little’s going with Alvarez,
right-hander
here in the eighth, facing
the fat of the order ...
Martinez—broken bat—hoofs it
to first,
Hunt stays at third, we’re at
three all, two out,
Fletcher on deck ...” Guava
striplings, blue clods
and two-by-fours between the
rows, soy past
the ridge. “First-pitch
blooper to the left-field corner—
error by the cut-off
man—throw’s late—Hunt’s under—”
2.
I loved your room, and you
when you were there.
Light through the buckthorns,
your furnishings “Eugene”:
day-bed, door-curtains, quilt
with embroidered bees.
Its smell you called “the
spirit of the place”
and a mouse came in and out,
just as it pleased.
Ought I divide my life into
its phases?
Generic boy—corduroy
overalls—
a lazy eye—the Quartier
Latin—
it blends together. Lying
about cocaine.
May and September snow in the
Corvair,
static, then utter white
between the bands.
A year or so of gumption
(20), gall
and TV (21), and others’
faces ....
My soul, such that it was,
could not be pleased.
3.
My Schwinn banana-seat
cruiser, fire-truck-
red, with a broken bell and
dragging fender,
a basket for two six-packs
and my keys—
party at Jake’s to celebrate
... the end.
A cigarette reduced to
pin-prick ember,
the punk in a bolo tie, about
whose band
I’d heard it said—“they fuck
you forty ways,
they’re loud. They smell.” I
slid off the pedals
and walked through the
dandelions. Inside was Jake
laughing with Tim (back from
his “stay” in Boulder)
who gave Sally his smooth
soft palm, on the shoulder.
Bill G., a solid cube of musk
cologne,
switched off “When the Levee
Breaks” and put on Beck.
“With your front teeth?
Surely it isn’t done—”
4.
“Hel called on acid, she was
up in Maine,
crawling among the lichens ...
so she said.”
Sally, who’d cut her hair,
flicked back her head
and nearly spilled what
Schlitz of mine remained ...
11:30, 2, and Vertigo,
summer way back in a
warehouse in the Mission,
the suede couch on the porch
lost in the snow,
“a broadside misprint—look at
the bottom—‘connexion,’
she never knew.” Two chords
seduce the creek,
a G and a D, the first a soft
enclosure
like a nylon tent, the latter
the couple inside.
Shannon lies down in her robe
and stays awake,
having seen the brook through
which the boy will wade,
asleep. And a pick-up stalls
in the windless pasture.
the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan
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