QUARRELS

Eyebrows held like knitting needles
mouths braided with angusish
clouds bulbed like brains
drawn fleeced with thoughts
like water whipped by wind
rent like lightning
the ripped shelter of skies

so that in their rooms
children lie wakened
in fact, the children had been jumping in ther beds
in fact, the children slept throught the storm
in fact, the children had not yet been born

_

THE MEETING

Upon their faces
marks of worry
of weather
a simpering parsimony of words

In her face
the confidence of sexual power
(or only a mirage of
sexual power—

for there is too much
coy questioning about it
do you like me
my clothes, my hair?)

And this
still within
the formality of marriage,
the rude intimacy of it.

__

DROWNING

Drowning.
The logic of it,

its tranquility.
Sent to look

in the mirror
when

there’s no one there

To acknowledge

the water,
the water’s depth

to see it,
to die

Well, fancy seeing you here

Yes, I have some cheek showing up here after months and months and imagining i'm welcome.

But wait—we moved to a new house! I took up a new job! Li’l A had surgery! Baby A runs around talking up a storm! We’re in the mad midst of sudden Summer sociality! There’s too much fun to be had on Facebook—I just took a test to see which Hindu goddess I am! There’s been no time!

But I really want to come back here at the end of the day and blab blog, so here’s a start.

the stillness of
photos
their pause
then peace

his hair always
waves welcome
her walk is like laughter,
all over the place

See--even the sun
beams
as though
those two

are the sweet, buttery
heart,
where the universe
should start


_

Display only--not for consumption

I love to cook, and my favorite fantasy is about competing on Top Chef (I’m not at all that good; this is a fantasy). But I’ve never been successful at baking. I guess because baking is so precise, in measurements of ingredients and time, unlike cooking where I tweak and improvise to my heart’s content.

Still, there must be something of a pastry chef manqué inside me, because every time I change Baby A’s diaper, dusting her bottom with cornstarch makes me feel like I’m giving a cake a final dusting of powdered sugar and when I draw a precise line of diaper cream in her diaper, I feel as though I’m frosting some impossibly dainty patisserie.

_

KARMA

in this room lit only by far off planets
bleak as a poorly attended meeting
now imagine a poem, and nurture it
while downstairs the vendors cry

downstairs the baby cries and
downstairs the mother cries too
flies sibilate happiness
or staticky radio messages

my body is out on the street
bright as light bulbs, falling
inwards, charred on a log fire
an eternal series, persistent

as the flash of television's reality
chronicling tiny, enduring details
food for the gods though not fit for them
speckled skies, four kinds of dogfights

_

Wait, Wait--don't tell me

So i finally watched Waitress--Adrienne Shelley's posthumously released film about a pregnant, pie-baking waitress. I saw the previews when i was at the cinema to watch The Namesake and wanted to see it but never got around to it because no one would see it with me. I watched it by myself last night; it was free on HBO.

Like Juno--that other movie that seems to have been built around a prosthetic belly--i liked Waitress for the most part, and Keri Russell is radiant, while the guy who played her husband is suitably smarmy and disgusting. But there were too many out of character slips in the screenplay. The protagonist, for instance sneaks in hiply, ironic repartee that seems more in tune with her hip, ironic creator rather than herself. And though i'm a sucker for they-just-can't-help-themselves type passionate encounters, the disaffection and deceit engendered by *two* adulterous spouses seems rather heavy-handed.

And i won't tell you the end in case you've waited to see this film too. But i have to record my disaffection for two overly neat resolutions, such as (don't click if you'd rather not know) this and this, which tie the dangly ends of the film into a big, stylized bow.

Stay tuned. At this rate, i should have a Slumdog review in 2011.