what’s right in front of me

I figured out that another bad writing habit I have acquired (second only to not writing at all and a close cousin to waiting for things to make sense) is this odd notion (where did it come from?) that I have to look back in time and make connections and package things up with some kind of perspective. Blech. I hate poems that do that. Why did I get stuck in that place in my head? I had forgotten that if I look at what’s right in front of me, there’s an organizing principle all its own at work. Duh.

So, the title (working title only, I think) of this draft is inspired by that realization. (You’ve been warned that they don’t make any sense, right?)

What’s right in front of me

The sort of rain that makes no sound whatsoever.
The sort of poem that includes the word whatsoever.
The sort of man who wants me nomatterwhat and
the sort who wanted me onlyif. We have drinks
on the rocks with salt. We confess
the weaknesses of our bodies. We confess
the places we’ve been.
We confess.

The house is divided long before it is
divided up. The full moon comes when he wants
not when he’s called. I take none of the blame for this
and I take all of it. In his absence, I sleep
surrounded by one hundred purple lights,
cast runes and retrieve warnings, shed clothes,
like leaves, let go, like leaves, twirl
like a girl leaving this world and
the world she made up. My dear —

three pumpkins flicker and grin on your window sill,
heads the children cut from their own necks
(and would again). The sort of sacrifice
that makes no sound whatsoever.
The sort of gift that stumbles into a poem.
The sort who wants nothing in return, asks nothing
in return but someone to come at night
when they cry out from a bad dream.