like machine-gun fire it was just a glance
but
but but but but but
suddenly the plunge!
I saw your face looking into my face
and needing something
and eyes coming from a very far-down place
coming from the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean
coming up slowly
and my face
although I am ever the actress my face fell
and I sat miserable through class
until the relative escapism of the bell
and you and I walked down the stairs
and you and I said nothing
(you beside me, accidentally)
There are too many men boys chalk
hangs thick in the air swells
crescendos (chalk air hot in throat)
falls quick slackening disappointed
too many shirtless boys
too many too everytime I catch
myself looking at him he looks away
I look away
too many boys.
Music that is too hard and heartless
yet somehow intended to console to
push higher and faster
a vague poeticism of aching fingers
chalk ground into the cracks
like guitar thrash. Smokevoice
chalkhoarse that is
howling them further into
our make-believe mountain.
have walked out-of-doors
staring and letting the sun
I have let the sun burn out my irises
and the light splinters every step
And please, please Martin Soto
While you are in my line of vision
Please be fumbling for your keys to get them from your soft black jacket
please enunciate the differences between us
before I go and falll in love with you
To crane the neck around the windowpane
You still have some time!!
And just before my view expires
oh for fucking hell's sake
boy that is a cigarette you have seen right through me
what I think they ought.
And for my pains I am rewarded with these
thickly white hands, clay dust ground into the cracks
no matter how many times I wash!
At night, I go climbing and I fill my hands with chalk
And abrade them against rough rocks
until they split and swell
I go home and I pour thick green lotion into the cracks
(although it is like pouring buckets of sand into the Grand Canyon)
and in the morning they are soft
and I fill them with clay.
:the sharp fresh taste out of a steamy plastic bag on the sidewalk in front of a grocery store in the student ghetto of Montreal, near McGill. Signs in the windows for liquor and russet apples, sky like a blue headache.
:sitting on a high stool in Turko�s with a tiny try-it cup of hot dark dark coffee sitting spellbound to the story of a beautiful waiter, eaten out of the same damn bag and still feeling high from music and sunlight and the boys and girls around me .
:snapping and eating on newspapers in a sun-bright kitchen with relatives perched around me on hodgepodge chairs from around the house and scavenged: piano benches, broken folding chairs, strong-hewn dark wood dining room chairs.
and somehow all related!