Marika Stokset

I AM LIKE THE MOON BECAUSE I BROOD

I mean

the cold hard stuff of my blood

is having trouble in there.

Tiny corridors.

Vast gymnasiums with bleachers.

They can't hold one philosophy,

or one gentleman-caller

has trouble working my coffee-maker—

What a goof!

The pigeons in the park look dirty

the way they scavenge and bend down and ask for sex

but it is just their coloring.

Park it, Mister.

I'm tired all the time.

Lay me down.

I don't complain as much as I should.

And what am I to do with this ache for child?

The pill, when swallowed, learns reverse psychology—

I need a rock and a paper clip

and those three dreams from last night.

And air—I need air—

to build my own dimension.

I'll sleep and swim and learn woodworking,

and you, sir, can come on the weekends

in the month of Soctober.

But Mom

can come every hour

every hour

even after she dies

every hour.

O listen to the lunacy!, please, tell me tell me now:

when do a line and a square stop their friendship? and

when can I go smoke my lungs to functionlessness?

Yesterday night the lamppost looked like the moon

because it was brooding.

It shouldn't.

It just needs some gin

and some Huey Lewis and the News.

YOUR COLLAPSE IS A GIANT, HARRIET

And the fortune

of childhood, your beloved

locket, opened

and shut a face

called Mother,

like a harmonica

shrieking the gold-oval-

graciousness of

a way.