Speak Easy
This is not the speak easy
Where a man who says he's dying
Asks for a quarter,
Where Monroes and Harlows flutter by,
Where you imagine you'll meet
A woman with eyelashes
Like butterflies
Who wants to have your child.
This is not the afternoon
Of swallows in the swimming pool.
This is not the super wild rose
Scent of a monarch
Emerging from its cocoon.
This is not the phone ringing
In early morning
To broadcast death.
This is not the year
Of tenderness.
Exposures
In dry drawing rooms,
In neutral colored executive suites,
I'm still meeting you
For kisses pulled from blue vineyards.
A succession of cigarettes
While I tell you how, as a child,
I spent summer afternoons
In a sweaty waiting room
For a crooked doctor
To fill out prescriptions
In chicken scratch.
The room silent and stifling
Except for a polluted fan whirring
And the voice of my mother
Cursing the heat in Italian.
I watched people disappear
Behind a nameless door,
And emerge smiling,
Slips of white paper in their hands.
Dr. K.
Drinking green wine from Portugal,
Remembering the nests
Over our garage
Where baby birds would fall from
Onto the driveway,
Bald, slack and wiry
Like little old men.
How my Grandfather looked
In his coffin
After months of chemo.
I still meet you
Beside October's bloody lakes,
Let you take my hand
And tell me the future,
Knowing that in a year you'd marry
A woman who pretends photography
But is really, as the Native American legend claims,
Capturing souls.
The one dimensional woman
Whose dreams are underexposed.
I listen to you tell me how
I make your palms sweat.
I let you play with the fire in my hair.
I accept your pretend smile
When I ask if you know
What foxglove is for?
It’s used to put the heart on an even keel,
Or simply just to kill.
I tell you it grows
Beside my front steps.
I still meet you on moony golf courses,
Send you love letters on gum wrappers
I've written in strange rooms near dawn.
I still question if you can crawl
Through Steinbeck's dusty worlds,
Or Salinger's desperations.
Can you be the desperadoes
James Dean made flesh?
Can you get your hands dirty
From the truth.
I tell you about the dogwood's
Crucifixion stains,
The sunflower's inflorescence.
Tell you how, if the timing is right,
I could fall in love with anyone.
One was wayward and hungry as a crow.
One was named Hartman
With a voice like somber violin.
And another, Saint John,
Like Christ's best friend.
I tell you the Virgin is beautiful
With her powder blue robe
And a crown of 13 glittering stars.
In every vision she is flawless and sad
As a porcelain doll,
Sends silent messages
Like small implosions.
In dry drawing rooms,
In neutral colored executive suites,
I'm still meeting you
For kisses pulled from blue vineyards.
A succession of cigarettes
While I tell you how, as a child,
I spent summer afternoons
In a sweaty waiting room
For a crooked doctor
To fill out prescriptions
In chicken scratch.
The room silent and stifling
Except for a polluted fan whirring
And the voice of my mother
Cursing the heat in Italian.
I watched people disappear
Behind a nameless door,
And emerge smiling,
Slips of white paper in their hands.
Dr. K.
Drinking green wine from Portugal,
Remembering the nests
Over our garage
Where baby birds would fall from
Onto the driveway,
Bald, slack and wiry
Like little old men.
How my Grandfather looked
In his coffin
After months of chemo.
I still meet you
Beside October's bloody lakes,
Let you take my hand
And tell me the future,
Knowing that in a year you'd marry
A woman who pretends photography
But is really, as the Native American legend claims,
Capturing souls.
The one dimensional woman
Whose dreams are underexposed.
I listen to you tell me how
I make your palms sweat.
I let you play with the fire in my hair.
I accept your pretend smile
When I ask if you know
What foxglove is for?
It’s used to put the heart on an even keel,
Or simply just to kill.
I tell you it grows
Beside my front steps.
I still meet you on moony golf courses,
Send you love letters on gum wrappers
I've written in strange rooms near dawn.
I still question if you can crawl
Through Steinbeck's dusty worlds,
Or Salinger's desperations.
Can you be the desperadoes
James Dean made flesh?
Can you get your hands dirty
From the truth.
I tell you about the dogwood's
Crucifixion stains,
The sunflower's inflorescence.
Tell you how, if the timing is right,
I could fall in love with anyone.
One was wayward and hungry as a crow.
One was named Hartman
With a voice like somber violin.
And another, Saint John,
Like Christ's best friend.
I tell you the Virgin is beautiful
With her powder blue robe
And a crown of 13 glittering stars.
In every vision she is flawless and sad
As a porcelain doll,
Sends silent messages
Like small implosions.
And the world's going to hell.
All except for you.
I tell you, how once upon a time,
In the midst of a church sermon
I watched a very tall boy fall backwards
Like a great redwood tree.
On the crimson carpet
People crowded around him,
Tried to lift him
Like ants moving a piece of food.
15 years ago I'd dream
Of dead rock stars resurrecting,
Turning up in the west, in disguise.
They'd work in the fields,
Their long hair smelling of rain
And sycamores.
Alongside them I would wear
Cotton frocks,
Gather vegetables and fruits
To store in Mason jars.
We'd make occasional trips to Spain.
15 years ago I'd dream of dead rock stars.
At the Café Amsterdam
Inside Kennedy Airport
There's a bartender whose worked there
33 years, all day watching
People fly away and land.
All day pouring liquid topaz
Against their wounds.
And everyone's going to hell.
All except for you.
I tell you
You can devote your whole life
To one thing, one person,
And only come away
With a little spare change.
Tried to lift him
Like ants moving a piece of food.
15 years ago I'd dream
Of dead rock stars resurrecting,
Turning up in the west, in disguise.
They'd work in the fields,
Their long hair smelling of rain
And sycamores.
Alongside them I would wear
Cotton frocks,
Gather vegetables and fruits
To store in Mason jars.
We'd make occasional trips to Spain.
15 years ago I'd dream of dead rock stars.
At the Café Amsterdam
Inside Kennedy Airport
There's a bartender whose worked there
33 years, all day watching
People fly away and land.
All day pouring liquid topaz
Against their wounds.
And everyone's going to hell.
All except for you.
I tell you
You can devote your whole life
To one thing, one person,
And only come away
With a little spare change.
What’s Dying In America
Happens like a thought
Between pages.
It's the itch beneath your skin
You cannot reach.
What's dying in America
Happens forever- a yellow orchid
In Nevada, a child fallen from a window
In Manhattan,
A man frozen to death in a trailer
In West Virginia.
The voices of the ill
Roaming the Bowery.
What's dying, those things we cannot name.
The war that starves us all.
The silence that descends.
The long line of dead
That beg us to remember them.
Happens like a thought
Between pages.
It's the itch beneath your skin
You cannot reach.
What's dying in America
Happens forever- a yellow orchid
In Nevada, a child fallen from a window
In Manhattan,
A man frozen to death in a trailer
In West Virginia.
The voices of the ill
Roaming the Bowery.
What's dying, those things we cannot name.
The war that starves us all.
The silence that descends.
The long line of dead
That beg us to remember them.
***
Corrine De Winter
