main and spring (formerly calle de los negros)
Allow me to pass, undisturbed
in the likeness of virgin soil
I am refuse, the mongrel dog’s dinner.
Until we cannot bear it longer, marry
me to the ditches and hog wallows
to hold and hold — as the single
rope’s clutch of neck-skin
as the gutter
of a courthouse I lean I grit I give
the heart of woman is superlatively poisonous
A breath was taken here, first for the slow rush of it
not to conjure the old dialects, not a
family language
or the silver and
virulent curse, the silver end-stone. No,
this breath
pads through the window’s cold sill
moonlike along the strawberry ranches,
sitting in the coveralls and lace of men.
So you want to talk in-humanity — the love
of money, the baser passions standing face
to face each other. Between whom there can be no
assimilation. Someone somewhere
is laughing, yes, even still.
a little piece of me will fly off and strike you dead
And / if your heart is not true / if your heart is not true / when you tap the rock in the clam patch / a little piece of it will fly off / and strike you in the heart / and strike you dead.
– Joanne Kyger
So camouflage is the best protection. We
redevelop our shopping center and
flood the streets with pots and plants.
Evict us, then disembowel the dynasty.
The mall, the rent, the gathering spots. Our
Sundays as royalty in the playing card aisle.
And why we sit for a spring while one home sprawls
out the hinge cracks and dies its cold loud death.
Even then, we always felt like we had enough.