Jan: A Proem

 

 

Take me home
to dirty alligator water,
water moccasin land.

Wear a gold band
with the stone turned into the palm,
an oyster’s pearl
tapping on a wine glass.

Do you know
what my mother would say?

 

Put the wine bottle down.
Stop crying.

 

Forgive a Thursday night:
bathroom make-outs,
a fight in cowboy boots,
wanting to undress a color
that only loved me on special occasions.

Pronounce the name
of my parish, its river.

Predict the year of the next flood.

Stop crying.
 

Cook me a po-boy
with gravy and fries.

 

*

 

I keep praying to Mary. I’m looking for fruit in her blue eyes, putting my hands like a prayer in her ice cream. Hail Mary, full of Brooklyn, our diadems are guilty.

 

*

 

Home:

where I cried less. Drank less.

Or maybe that’s not

entirely the way it was

but it’s how it feels

in my gut or memory or—

 

 

*

 

What’s so great

            about her?

 

This is the one that broke.

 

*

 

It’s easy after this: a lie

I’m telling myself and some other
people and also my mother.

 

*

 

When I can’t sleep I think of paper dolls, babies, birds, stars, cotton, backyards, kitchens with garbage disposals, parades with beads, lakes, pools, porches, drive-thru daiquiris, etc. These are all things I suppose I could count but I never feel like quantities of a thing really make anyone feel better, just the thing itself—and usually you just need one.

 

*

 

I want to make a pie  

in the kitchen

 

There are peaches       

for preserves

 

I am messy

 

You won’t kiss

my fingers

 

sticky reminders

of the hours between

 

*

As it is, I’m not sure

whether I’m hungry or grieving.

 

*

 

Stop crying, I’m telling you.