schlitz

the beer that made milwaukee famous
has long been gone and left us
with empty fermentation tanks
and many sober weddings.

Illilouette, trans.

names like pouring rain
Wapama
Chilnualna
Bridalveil
Nevada
Ribbon
Vernal
your book of birds
you stayed up all night reading
wanting to see a cooper's hawk
a sharp-shinned hawk
a golden eagle
but you forgot to look
because Illilouette
was roaring like a lion.

without daring to
i'm daring you to look out over the edge but
holding your waist
i've had a talk with gravity
and we reached an understanding
the water falls
and you stay here with me.

Illilouette
your teeth on your tongue
the name that does not bear translation
not-still-water
and we
are-not-still.

5.10.11 puzzles

the blues make sense to me

a worn out sofa in my grandparents living room
where my nani slept
for as long as i can remember
the kind with a floral pattern
and wooden arms and feet
just barely stained
by cigarette smoke
the fabric thin like an old work shirt
stuck too many times by the elbows of wrestling children

and me, without a clue
that is where i go
when i need to rest my head

the lake, too, at night
with a big moon up
and the doors open
the edge of the woods
where that old truck rusted
and resisted it's useless existence
the hood of a 1966 dodge charger
still warm
stars spilled like pepper
teasing us into believing
that our existence
would be manageable

she turned to me with all of the lost control of a teenager
and i don't remember anything (she remembers the car, and was disappointed when i picked her up a few years later in a 1986 lebaron) except that she tasted like cigarettes, which probably reminded me of my grandparents
and my home

there is a place where it doesn't matter if you run the stop sign at the bottom of the hill
nobody is out there
and there is one light far down the road an old farmhouse where nobody lives
the night sounds:
bullfrogs
crickets
we decide to turn on
the am radio
to catch the ninth
and press our ears to the mono speaker
but you don't kiss me
because you are nervous
with one man on
and one man out
down by two
you're thinking
"don't swing. don't fucking swing
at a slider outside
or something in the dirt"
and i'm thinking
"jesus christ, your lips
are close to mine
and if-"
we hear the crowd go silent
and our brains tell our hearts
that he's swung
and missed
but we hear the ball
hit the bat
and before it's even over the wall
you're on top of me
and that old blue vinyl
is our bed.

so what
if i listen to miles davis
it doesn't mean
that i know anything
that you don't.

the blues make sense to me because they are a language. i didn't get that when i was younger, when somebody first told me, "you gotta speak the language, man." you can't speak it until you understand it. and you don't understand it until it wants you to. you earn it. and i'm not all the way there, and i have plenty of understanding to earn. but i like bending strings and matching up with everybody else in the room, because the blues really do tug at our muscles and nerves and fill our brains with a warm wash of rhythm. it feels really fucking good to just play the blues.

she will hit for power,
but will never sacrifice
a sure single
scoring a runner from second
to fly out at the warning track.

she will write poems about babe ruth
tell stories about the negro leagues
and always watch the infielders
when most of us are watching
the ball headed towards the bat.