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if you’re young and smart
and reading this then maybe
go read something else
—
The Vice
The song I play at’s never coming home
to rest / or otherwise rescind its light
from forests blanched by moonbeams overhead,
indifferent / to the coming of the poem.
A melody like wandering at night
& harmonies like what the angel said
would happen / if I musicked out of turn
or dared to lift my body from the bed.
So humbled, saved, & with a heart contrite,
I’ll sing atop the bowers as they burn
bright red — /
—
Secret Track: Courtney Love in Alaska
With a sonnet of dollars left in my wallet
I return home to finish reading The
Women Troubadours by Magda Bogin
In the book one of the poets writes
I can tell you truly [/] that I’ve never been
without desire (—Tibors, probably
the earliest of the women troubadours)
and I wondered if that was how
Courtney Love felt after Straight to Hell:
I don’t know almost anything about
Courtney Love but this paragraph is just
amazing, like the great women court
poets spurning meaningless flattery
in favor of real love, or as Castelloza said,
God knows I should have had my fill of song —
The marble archways of feeling
give way to a cool, hard sound, like the
water at Thunder Bird Falls in Anchorage
crashing into Eklutna Lake, the high rapids
deigning to converge with the low like a
lady of undeniable rank giving the time of day
to some lowly would-be knight, or Court-
ney Love stripping for the fishermen —
if this poem lacks a nuanced class analysis
it’s because it traffics in the fantasy of
royal love, the kind that sand demonstrates
toward other sand to keep their castle
intact, or the thing that clay needs in order
to surrender its malleability and dry,
become brittle, hence able to be broken
—
Death in the Middle Ages
Confusingly, people didn’t die
in the Middle Ages. They just got
sadder and sadder until sudden
-ly, one day, they met Christ
in a private space that would be
especially meaningful to them.
Then Christ would ask them,
while holding out his hands in
two level, downturned fists,
“In which of my two hands do
You believe the secret to eternal
Life lies?” There was no secret
answer to this in Scripture, as
a few to whom Christ posed this
question believed; he wasn’t
looking for some sub rosa code,
or a half-remembered quotation
from Matthew. Instead he just
waited for the person he was
asking to pick a hand, and
when they did he would lower
the other fist and reply, “Death
Is a challenge each of us meets
In our own way, according to
Our lives and histories.” At this
point honey would begin to drip
from his mouth and his tear
ducts as he spoke. “Your way
Of dealing with death is equally
Valid to anyone else’s, including
My own. Before I open my hand,
I want to be absolutely sure you
Understand this.” Most people,
a little transfixed by the honey,
simply nodded at this point.
Then Christ would turn his hand
over and, before he would be
able to open his fist, the person
would suddenly realize why
they were meeting Christ in this
exact spot. They would make
eye contact with him and smile,
sometimes tearfully, and he
would smile back. Then he’d
put his fist down and offer
instead an open hand to the
person, saying slowly and
clearly, “Thank you for being
With me on this ahistorical
Afternoon.” The sound of what
could be called distant thunder
would beckon in the distance.
Wordlessly, the person meeting
Christ would take his hand and
just start running. They’d run as
fast as they could, with Christ
never more than half a step
behind. They’d be running so
fast they’d forget where they
were and where they had
started from, so by the time
they began to wonder or tire
the only thing left to follow
was the thunder, which after a
while seemed directionless, almost
like it was coming from everywhere.
—
