prose fragment 19

this is where I've been ya'll
and this is where I will

last ten birthdays

18:

Curled up knees below on a chair upstairs of the Campus Library. Reading for class, placated solo, round nine in the evening. Though then Brian finds me, as it was in those months he took it upon himself to care for me. He hunted me down, as this was before I owned a phone. Took me out of the library, from my reading, into his car, where he played tapes of himself singing and playing guitar. We went and got ten pm milkshakes from a Virginia rundown drive through. Not some shining chain, but some loose sign in old neon. Strawberry, I believe. Maybe rather vanilla.

19:

Sitting on the floor of a bookstore with Christine, Lori, and Mary. We’ve found the band Hem for the first time; they’ve just released their album rabbit songs. We sit and I start crying. Can’t help but cry, with redheaded Sally singing, hearing her for the first time. Later, I wear grey corduroys, a powder blue tshirt, and a thick blue wool cardigan that belonged to Lori. It had a hole in the elbow. Lori and I walked over to Mathew and Daniel’s room, where they had baked me a cake absolutely coated in sprinkles. We drove to Washington DC and played hackeysack off the statue of Lincoln until a cop told us to beat it. We drove home, listening to Simon and Garfunkel, and that song we couldn’t stop, Hoarding it for Home.

20:

A party at Marie and Jacob’s. Jackie and I went as the two girls from Ghost World. I wore a pink cardigan and grey tailored slacks, as if going on some professional interview. Someone was a robot, most likely Jackie Small. Mary was a nun, Jym a priest, and Christine, a ballerina. The following day they presented me with the gift (didn’t want to bother you on your birthday, they said). They got me a year’s subscription to National Geographic. One of the best gifts yet.

21:

Worst. Frantic energy with friends asking “what would you like to do?” Well, didn’t know, couldn’t know, left it at me freezing, them saying “call if you can” which I can’t, so I go run. For the first time ever, I run five miles, and I’m sobbing whilst doing so. Later, I speak to my mother on the phone from the balcony. Attempt to hide my crying, but break and both mom and dad know. In the evening, I find myself on the backporch of Parcel House

22:

Best. Opened the bookshop in Jackie’s red cowboy boots and a knee length plaid skirt. Swept the lower floor while listening to Everybody Fields, then John Prine, then Willie Nelson. Accumulated bits of objects from loveys all day, including the Dan Finnegan mug P&E gift me. After work, run around the neighborhoods, watch trick-or-treaters, listen to Andrew Bird. Come home to Hunter house with a living room of friends. We sit and wait for Ian to drive down from DC, and while waiting a knock. Jackie says “come in” but no one comes in, only knocks again. Shit, she realizes, trick-or-treaters, and we have no candy. She scrambles to find something, grabs at a dog toy ball, and thrusts it into the confused fingers of a costumed kid. We close the blinds, turn off the lights, become that house. Ian arrives and in an attempt to grab me, hits his head. Roommates secretly snicker, though this incident will be referenced many times as proof in the pudding. After dinner at Sammy Ts, McAfee knocks on my bedroom door and presents me with a tape of bird songs. I blush and think the coloring’s indecently wrong.

23:

Run about Newmiller Dam in Yorkshire. Run around it twice, then back up the hill. Took a train to York, solo, and swam in the international swimming pool. Then, drink a latte, because I can, then buy a book of poems inspired by Joseph Cornell, because I can. That evening, the international farm staff throw me an “American party” which involves cheap beer and drinking games. The Hungarians bake me a cake, but at this point, I’m not eating any sugar, so watch the international metabolisms feast at. Turns out I’m more than half way decent at Beer Pong. Who knew? Get sufficiently drunk and turn to tequila, terrible.

24.

Work in Brooklyn and run around Prospect Park. Return home to Harlem, where Slelm and Joan present me with a Holga. Take the subway back downtown to meet Eliot on the lower east side. On the subway, another car passes my own, and a zombie stares back at me. I can barely stand it. We eat falafel or pizza or something random, and I head back up to sleep without knowing really what was done or what to do. It’s new york so I’m miserable, no matter.

25.

Harvest Morning, which relieves me of birthday anxiety. Just harvest all morning until they announce the Friday Harvest Farmers’ lunch can be me-centered. I reject and rather run, say I’ll meet up with them once they’ve finished. I finish my run at the café, and little Florian comes out with a cheesecake lit with a sparkler. I try to not fuss, but after blowing out the candles, pass to everyone pieces. They ask, where is yours? I look down. They push, where is yours? Eat some. So I admit and mutter to my running clothed legs, I don’t like cheesecake, because I don’t. Later, I dress like an animal and watch skits put on by the villagers. I like this part very much.

26.

Wake on a farm in Conneticut. Drive to another in upstate New York, in a car with 4 men and no other women. No mention of birthday. Finally, fed up, I lean forward and ask Sebastian if we can stop so I can get coffee. I want coffee. It’s my birthday. He responds “McDonalds?” and I fall quiet. Later in the evening, they eat man sandwiches, with thick and wet meats, which I do not touch. I cry while washing their dishes, alone in the kitchen of a barn we’ve been supplied. Eno, the floating alien German farmboy, pitters up beside me and holds out a handsewn book of handwritten german poems, with English translations as well. Happy Birthday he whispers and enlarges one of his already enormous eyes. He pitters away and I am left with soapy hands staring at such.

27.

Sunday. I’m sick. I run, regardless. I’m sick, but then I ride my bicycle to the yoga studio and do hot yoga. I’m sick, it’s my birthday, so I get a giant fruit smoothie and feel better. I do homework, then eat a hamburger, because it’s my birthday, but it’s a terrible idea, because I’m sick. I go to some concert I can’t remember with a guy I wish I didn’t remember, and I speak to Jackie on the phone, where I am alone at the bar, drinking a gin and tonic, and miss her, miss her, miss her.

28.

Last night, I ate a pear and read Ulysses. I warmed almond milk with honey and read my blue canvas novel. I took a bath and scrubbed. Scrubbed and clipped and then coated it all with cocoa oil so that this morning my body was soft. I woke at 7 and read Ulysses. I finished the episode, laced up running shoes, and ran. I thought about all these birthdays and how they all are full of food not eaten and runs taken and friends present or sideways and how funny it all is. How simple it all is. It’s all what we consume and what we avoid. The interplay of the two. Today, surprise, I run. I drink coffee. I can, and some things I can’t, and so on. And So forth, we go.

maydays

it's

spring

time

for

us

finished folks

hush I in my glottis go!

quiet you now fox too!

if weight be the matter

then decompose

and file away your

so it's straight, serious

with only little a swim

no folks aren't so

big as they may seem

not yet as fragrant as the red soil

or the sunned sides of little yellow

not as noisy as bluebirds

never yet as graceful

so i'd rather

i didn't

so now hush i

let fox you now too

yowza

-no one really wants to be holderlin out in the garden

with a foot of snow gathered on top of his head-

jim harrison

what the white goat said to me this morning

i will whine and smile

watch me to see how

please don't take me lightly

i'm composed of solemn solidity

and

smell fantastic in the march sun

come on

belly down now

let's settle this morning

in the hoofing of hay

woops, looks like it's about time to take the reins again.

otherwise, this great big bird of the world will get out

from under me, and well, wouldn't it be a shame to be

midair with the globe beside me, all feathered and oiled

so as to avoid the saturation of rain and fog, while I?

a patch of mess? soak it all in without even toes?

all that my life's about really

*

"fighting on horseback is beautiful"

ivan the terrible

*

what one does on one's time on

we fight tigers
beside not against

what we talk about in your made up room

tight

it's harder to

cross-country-ski

more so than run

single

knee over

single

knee over

knee

draped in

say, I adore,

say, Easy,

fishing hooks

thumb tacks

clothes pins

say isn't this

these easy steps

this fast pace out

onto the yard

of visual pieces

say, you say,

here, eat this,

it's mere skis,

meager shuffle

when I look down

the plane of snow is

all white, all over,

without

the image

of blades (grass)

I try rather triangles

rather cross hill

drag snow

over snow

I make no more nor less nothing

tree you

1.

he a tree
worn green
to be cut
i'll use him
like logs
fragrant
sound
of wet fir
fire

he asks
if he falls
will i
hear
and i say
yes
yes
with
excitement
i'll hear
the fall
of future
heat for
the house

2.

but
i too
now
a tree
besides
also now
wet behind
ears,
green,
now on
knee
of branches
kneeling
now
lacing, lancing
depending
on
the day
time of
tree
and trestles
leaning

I, too.

joan dear

If I were Joan Didion,

I would construct

rectangular thoughts

of substance and story.

I would smooth over my eyes

large black sunglasses

type obstinately at prose

tidily fit five feet tall

between hard covers.

Bravely, I would create

the heat and draft of sorrow

and macrobiotic birthings

in nouns, verbs, commas,

periods.

I would disappear beneath

the skin of strangers

tape lives like collagework

in straight and long lines.

Sure I'd swing my arm up,

but I would never slouch.

If I were Joan Didion

I'd be a paragraph

blink blankly at the thrown

together notion of the stanza

skirt the issue altogether

return to my following chapter.

he wondered all winter, and so did i

He wondered

all winter

what her hair

must look like

underneath

the fake fur cap

she wore tight

over her ears

from September on,

when he first arrived,

with the red

and yellow branches.

Taking

handfuls of hay

for the animals,

was it also so dry,

also this thick,

yellow, fermented,

drowsy.

could he, too,

chew as a cow,

on its edges?

Or pulling up

palmfuls

of the dead weeds

beside the deer fence

post, was it wet

and circular,

tight, rooted

into her head

like long, brown veins?

Would it circle

his thumbs,

up his forearms?

Could he band

his elbows with it?

The March day

gave

an infant sun.

He sported

thin shoes,

feeling this warmth,

he sought her.

She filled jars

with water,

outside the house,

her ankles bare

so her shoulders

her neck, there,

solid, skinny.

He hid

behind her

hat, just as

stubbornly pushed

on to her temples

as during

the early snows.

He saw her

otherwise naked,

no matter:

not the water

at her ankles

not the eyes

of animals

and other hands,

only the motion

of his wrist

towards her

head, as he tore

the hat

from it.

at the laundromat on a Saturday Night

I love the Baby Giant Panda

I'd welcome one to my veranda.

I never worry, wondering maybe

Whether it isn't Giant Baby;

I leave such matters to the scientists-

The Giant Baby- and Baby Giantists.

I simply want a veranda, and a

Giant Baby Giant Panda.

-ogden nash-

Lassa, the prodigal ram

I've been eaten by sows, one boar.

I've scratched their thighs too often.

I've knocked the trees and loosened the bark.

I've turned on you, haven't I.

I've laid down in circles of straw.

I've constructed the circles myself.

I've arced them with my hooves.

I've tasted bread, which differs from grass.

I've sweated smells more so than most.

I've allowed you to touch my painful forehead.

I've turned on you for doing so, haven't I.

You've sold the sows, one boar.

You shook when they found me.

You've pruned those trees with saws.

You've turned from me, haven't you.

You've thought to lay in circles of straw.

Like a mouse, like me, nest.

You've felt your fingernails with the pad of your thumb.

You've tasted grass, but prefer bread.

You've gotten my scent for days in your nose, your hands.

You've satisfied the painful desire to touch between my eyes.

You've turned away from me, haven't you.

Let's return.

Let's try this again:

I will fully my name, and ram.

You fully yours, keep being.

events

This twig and I meet across

the top of my head

It looks down and taps

the regality of sap

onto the soft spot of my crown

I'm so busy thinking

it's my need to imbue

these creatures with spirit

that I miss their chattered

whistled blessing

The water washes my hands.

The squash feeds me.

I meet the twig,

but it prepared the ceremony.

Virginia comes over the country

First,

I'm half way up Green Mountain when I see her leaning off her hip,

drinking from an old mug some water she collected of the rock.

Virginia, what a surprise, what is she doing here?

Virginia, I say, What a surprise. What are you doing here?

She doesn't answer because she's got her head facing West and

I'm speaking up from the East.

But I reckon it has something to do with the different between

hills and mighty elevation .

Then,

I'm driving like I will on Friday Mornings to work on the farm.

The land is regal with the hue of morning and

I'm just sucking and sucking and sucking it in through my eyes

as much as I can, when she's there, then, too,

Virginia's right hand disappeared into the matted fur of a buffalo's back.

Virginia! I shout, my car idling on the dirt path with the urban title of 59th street.

Virginia, I shout, what are you doing over there?

She answers this time, but with a clippness as to indicate I've got one

question, and I've asked it.

"Getting bits of whatnot off the Buffalo! Cleaning him up, really!"

I call out "Oh"

but realize she won't answer any others,

she's back to the animals, grass up to her hips.

I want to ask her how Jackie is,

how's the smell on the little road near Charlottesville.

What boxes have been brought in to the bookshop,

how many shark teeth have washed up on the Potomac.

But I'll just have to trust my intuitive answers:

twofeetwell, thus better, crisp, civilwar and popup books,

and too many to count, too many to ever fully collect.

It's nice to know, now, that the states visit one another sometimes on the weekend.

Next time Colorado goes calling, I'll ask if I, too, can go.

animal body

The hairs on my body form circles.

Light curls make shapes, ovals, opals.

I find hours to touch them gingerly,

above from the reflection of a pot,

or while standing on an elevator,

I look up, then touch the side of my

ear, where hair forms, returns, pets

and pats itself, like that on my upper

arm, see here now, my cheek, the down.

I’m comforted by my animal being,

who asks for no more ambition than

the breath and a good stretch occasionally.

I’m thrilled with the way it moves, not

through time, not out and long and firm,

but rather into itself, like sleep,

like how I find my form, at dawn.

evening, 1940

words from mister francis ponge:

What is it made of, this pleasure?- Principally of this: the pine woods is a piece of nature, made of trees all of a clearly defined species; a well delimited piece, generally quite deserted, where one finds shelter from the sun, from wind, from visibility; but no absolute shelter, not one completely isolated. No! It is a relative shelter. Not a sneaky shelter, nor a measly one, but a noble shelter.

It's a place too...where development is gradual, natural, without coppicing, without man-high branches, where sprawling out simply occurs, without slackness, but quite comfortably.

Each pine wood is like a natural sanatorium, as well as a music hall...a chamber, a vast cathedral of meditation (a cathedral without pulpit, fortunately) open to all the winds, but through so many doors that it's as if they were closed. For they hesitate there.

...

No laughter, but what salubrious comfort, what a temperateness of elements, what a soberly scented hall of music, soberly adorned, well made for serious walks and meditation.

-francis ponge-

He wiped chalk from his palms and twiddled his fingers and told me to be concerned

with my spleen and the footwear. He arranged his two arms like a cross and said

that I was all funny and off, and did I know what he was saying, yeah? and I looked at

the hills and said I could see them, and he said I couldn't, and I said it's Eve's fault and

he told me I'm her. His eyes seemed translucent and if he were blind I wouldn't be shocked.

Again, with space, he shook his arms in front of me and said to stop using the future,

and stop, knock it off with seeing the idea of mountains, and for seeing the idea as

grand, and what's more, quit it with seeing the idea of grass, and seeing the grass as grand.