...And I got this little streak in me that's twenty times mean.

There is a bit at the very beginning of Moby-Dick where Ishmael explains that when he gets in an a certain mood he has to the urge to methodically knock off the caps of people who happen to pass him on the street. It's the same part in the first chapter where he explains the need to pause before coffin warehouses. I get that. Unfortunately, I can't even bring myself to cut in line at Starbuck(')s. Ishmael sees it as the perfect time to take to the sea. Me? I write pithy, snarky poems. I just found this one going through things I wrote for one of Lou's classes. It'll never see its way to a journal or 'zine (except in a highly edited, almost unrecognizable form), so I assume it's safe for posting. It's part true, part complete lie, part my own working definition of Schadenfreude. I'm not going to say which is which. it's more fun that way (for me).


IF EVERYONE HERE DIES I GET TO BE EMPEROR

I.
I steal silverware from restaurants
and put it in a drawer in my kitchen
I wouldn’t use otherwise.

When the waitress isn’t looking
I stuff my purse full
of spoons, forks and steak knives.
Sometimes, if my bag is big enough,
I take mugs and decorative glasses too.
I stole a carafe once.
I always ask for extra napkins
so I have something to wrap them in.

She must think I’m a messy eater.

II.
I whisper obscenities at small children
getting off school buses
on sunny Friday afternoons—
just quiet enough that no one knows
exactly what I’m saying
but loud enough that
I make their parents and babysitters uncomfortable

III.
The day people told me you had a concussion
and couldn’t remember anything
passed the last 15 minutes,
I asked you questions
about conversations we never had
and laughed when you didn’t know
what in the hell I was talking about.

IV.
I find it difficult to sympathize
with Mary Magdalene.
she knew what she was getting into—
martyrs never want to go to sleep.

V.
I sniff underwear
in the women’s department
I hope someone tried on earlier
that same day.
I’m not allowed in Victoria’s Secret anymore—
they have my picture on file.
So I sit at the Starbucks
across the mall
and hope something wafts my way.

VI.
I carve voodoo dolls
of people who cut me off in traffic,
dog ear library books,
rent the movie I wanted to see,
make small talk with the cashier
when I’m already running late
and no other register is open…
I just don’t know how
to go about collecting their hair.

VII.
The night my ex-boyfriend
shot himself in the face
in the middle of a parking lot at VCU
I ate cake.
Later, at the funeral,
surrounded by Jell-O molds
and anonymous, green casseroles—
I didn’t have the stomach for it.

I didn’t take the spoons that night.
I can’t steal from church
and they’re plastic anyhow.

I offered to help clean up after
and stole the tablecloths instead.

Perhaps the title has taken on an ironic tone...

I'm still doing some major fiddling with this poem but I wanted to put up the original and then the "fixed" version base on suggestions made by a former professor. I always thought this thing was too long and it may still be. I have not done a full line edit, it is a skeleton of what it was before.

First the Edit:
PRODUCE

Lately, I feign headaches to be alone
and wake, flushed, from fitful sleep,
from dreams where my hands
or nose or ears are missing
and no one notices but me.

The grapes in the produce section,
bunched tightly in hunks,
don’t notice this absence
the way I did that morning
in my paper dress and hospital slippers.

My knees in the air and without underwear on,
we discussed Benizir Bhutto’s
assassination before the doctor filled
the syringe and the room
went momentarily fuzzy.

The machine lisped,
the wailing welling in me
like an old Armenian woman
who’d mourn for years to come
the quiet renting in that tiny room.

The hollow spaces—
walls I didn’t know,
cavities I thought filled in
by connective tissue and millions of platelets—
ached from dilation
and the unsteady slurp
of being sucked (almost) dry.

The slow wet gulp
of a clogged drain
swallowing the last of my shower
is sinister in how it reminds me
of sounds anesthesia could not block.

These grapes, bagged
in unrepentantly happy clusters
don’t know their role in this—
what I buy to avoid
coming home with less
than when I left.



Now the Original:
THE UNKINDNESS OF GRAPES

I.
The grapes in the produce section,
bunched tightly in hunks,
don’t notice an absence
the way I did that morning
in my paper dress and hospital slippers.

II.
We sat—
me and the rest—
some reading paperback novels,
others staring mindlessly past the wall,
waiting to hear their name.
Absentminded, I did the crossword,
filling “working” into 15-across
even though it should have been “useable.”

I did not get the chance to correct myself.

III.
My knees in the air and without any panties on,
we discussed Benizir Bhutto’s
assassination before the doctor filled
the syringe and the room
went momentarily fuzzy.

The machine lisped,
the wailing welling in me
like an old Armenian woman
who’d mourn for years to come
the quiet renting in that tiny room.
But I only managed a gasping wince
before it was over and I was told
I’d be back to normal soon.

IV.
The hollow spaces in me:
walls I didn’t know,
cavities I thought filled in
by connective tissue and millions of platelets,
ached from dilation
and the unsteady slurp
of being sucked (almost) dry.

Even the slow wet gulp
of a clogged drain
swallowing the last of my shower
is sinister in how it reminds me
of the sounds
the anesthesia could not block.

V.
Every conversation we’ve had
since I left so early that morning
without leaving a note
to say where I’d be
or for how long I’d be gone,
has been an ellipsis.

What I could say to women
I’d never met, but not to you,
echoes in me when you ask
how’ve I’ve been
and why I didn’t call when
I was in town.

VI.
Lately, I feign headaches to be alone
and wake, flushed, from fitful sleep
and from dreams where my hands
or nose or ears are missing
and no one notices but me.

I am still waiting for the normal
I was promised weeks ago.

VII.
These grapes, bagged
in unrepentantly happy clusters
don’t know their role in this—
what I buy to avoid
coming home with less
than when I left.

Let me know what you think...all three of you.

I hope I did not just make a costly mistake

"Are completing you thesis this semester?..."

That was the subject heading on the first e-mail I received from the GMU English Lit grad student listserv. I'm fairly certain that the woman who oversees the listserv is not actually a professor. This is slightly, though far from entirely, comforting.

I might have made another costly error in judgment recently. I'm not sure yet. But I do know that the place where I post letters to Starbucks is not the place to discuss said confusing, giant messes.

Instead, here is some impromptu haiku:

He sleeps on sofa--
shoes still on. Was raised better.
He'll trip, ties laces.