These poems originally appeared in the chapbook Wake
One Foot
Because gin is moonlight and juniper,
Because the righteous dead
Send back tales of paradise,
Because my daughter’s eyes
Are as blue as a July sky,
I put the gun
Back in the drawer.
Mary Mother of God
For three days now I have been searching,
Each day worse than the last.
A 12 year old boy alone in t his city
Is a stupid and dangerous thing.
I have trudged the streets
Of this ominous place
Described your brown sandals,
The color of your hair,
The way you just reach my shoulder.
I think of you frightened,
Starved and used in terrible ways.
I fight back vomit,
The urge to collapse.
Where is your blessed father now?
Where is that revelation angel?
On this third day I drag myself
Up the steps of another temple
And find you surrounded by the adoration of men.
You speak to me as if to an idiot.
“Why were you looking for me?”
“Didn’t you know I needed
To be in my father’s house?”
I do not hit you
Although I ache to.
Little teacher, there is much to be learned
In your mother’s house
Before you are loosed upon the world
For as the boy treats his mother
So shall the man treat his wife
And you are not the only one,
My son,
With a job to do
And a world to save.
The Night I Met Gregory Corso,
or Go Pump Yourself
I am early for dinner
With the handsome misogynist lawyer
Who is much older than me and only
Likes me for my tits and
Age, but it’s 1987 so
I don’t know that yet.
To kill time, I cross over
Sixth Avenue to B. Dalton’s.
There, signing books ,
Is poor Carl Solomon,
And heckling him,
In a long dirty coat and an open can of beer,
Is Gregory Corso.
I am star struck and trip
Over myself to grab a copy
Of Gasoline off the shelf.
“Mr. Corso, can you sign this for me?”
He puts an arm around me and asks,
“You looking for a boyfriend?”
Later I show the autograph
To the lawyer and his friends.
They don’t know
What I’m so excited about.
The lawyer tells the other couple
That he met me in a club
And puts his hand
On my thigh.
Brooklyn, 1995
I have a new baby and we live on the top floor
Of a brownstone on Henry Street.
To pass this frigid winter
We waltz on the brown carpet;
Flash past ice blossom windows
And clothes drying over the banister.
Beautiful boy with a newborn’s blue jewel eyes,
We swing between Sinatra and Rickie Lee,
Around and around the dining room.
It’s you and me and the snow
With roach traps; a rabbit quilt
And the husband daddy drunk
In another borough. Oh baby boy
I am waltzing us into something better
Though I’d swear right now
We were dancing in circles.
Missing
I miss you like a sister,
Like an arm
Cut off in a freak accident,
Like an amethyst bracelet
Left on the F train,
Or October in the middle of August.
Like the rise of a tower
That used to sit near the river,
Like joy,
Sister, I miss you.
Siren Song
Whose idea was this,
This swimming against the tide?
I am sleeping on the couch,
And piss rains down from the upstairs bathroom
Into my daughter’s bed.
Yesterday they took the sink out.
The toilet won’t flush
Unless you plunge
Your hand into the cold water tank
And yank the broken chain.
There used to be a house
With a pool, and a dishwasher,
And an ice maker.
I spit at all of it.
I said I was drowning.
Sometimes I’d water the lawn outside at night
So the children couldn’t hear me cry.
Once in the tub my son said:
“Daddy knows everything and you don’t know nothing.”
I took the boy overboard with me.
What passed as a raft
Is sinking. Floating debris
As far as the eye can see.
I pour myself a beer.
It’s better this way, I sing, better.
I’m a pirate and this is my chanty.
I think rats have been drinking
From the cat’s bowl.
St. Catherine’s of Smithtown
I take 25A for points east
Because I am afraid of traffic
And my poor ability
to anticipate lights
And the other guy.
But that is not the only reason
I’m on this slow road.
The hospital is there on a hill.
Shining temple, proof
That the universe rains
Amulets and pearls
And beautiful reminders.
When she is with me
I say, “There it is,”
The way you’d urge someone
To catch the sun
Just starting over the horizon,
Or a comet flaring through stars.
I know she knows the place she was born
But I want her to hear the celebration
In my voice, the party
In the backyard with sparklers
That she’ll remember
When the other guy says
Just a girl.
As for me, my eyes may be going,
And I drive like shit,
But the hospital says,
Look what you did,
Just look at what you did.