There is something
desirable about
breaking your mama's
china or
testing the durability
of a family heirloom.
First the grip of it
in your hands, the planned
slippage of your fingers
then
crash, splatter, wham
your ankles are sliced
up in your own mess.
You are wading in
something that's briny
and pleasant all at once.
and there is comfort in
breaking in new sheets with
several lovers.
the wrinkle, the purring
linen, a boudoir
sounding so much better
than a bedroom, sounding
so much better than
sainthood.
You are waist-deep
in some ocean
without a map, a compass/
with mud between your thighs.
You are rumpling/
folding/then rumpling
again.
***
do you remember digging in the backyard? the shovels and pails and the deep deep hope of stumbling across a bone a tooth a baby bird skeleton? weren't you hypnotized by the thought of the deliciousness in the break? the potential in icy hills and humming train tracks? those things that're brewing in the rupture?
we meet
in the field (the one that makes us itchy
in the thighs/ n' warm in the bones)
In a fraying handkerchief she has packed a handful of berries, a few hunks of bread,
small chocolates snatched
from her gramma's purse and
a few tiny bottles
of liquor from her Uncle Lonnie's special
drawer.
we sip till we are mind-numb,
licking at our fingers like awful dinner guests.
and there's music too. the clamor of the junkyard
down the road. the sweet clang of metal-things.
She lifts her shirt to show me her bug bites, a tiny city of them across
her belly. She takes a swig again,
and again and
it's delicious
how she wears her badness
like a badge
like a broach
like some back-to-school loafers.
***
If there was a school dance/I'd be clingin to the wall/you'd be spiking the punch/ You/ peony-scented and cool/a hand on my lower back/an utterance across my earlobe and /how the town would talk/ how they'd peck at the matter like a flocka hungry birds.
Last week, those twins down the street got
soaped up at the mouth
for their language, their chompers all sudsy
from too much
verbal riff raff. And there was somethin delicious
about the matter cause
they had it comin. See, if you're clever,
if you are sharp n quick wittted you'll know
that the safe spots to have a hot mouth are
behind the shrubs or before your mama returns from work
or in the clubhouse near the poplar tree. I'll have you know that
your fire mouth isn't to be used in the church pews/
in the presence of your gramma/ at the dinner table
in fronta your plate of glazed ham and peas.
Here is a short list of flammable language:
-four letter words
-words about other people's mamas
-threats
-comments about somebody's waistline or cooking abilities
-gossip about who is sleeping with who
But, all words are potentially combustible.
Just depends on the who/what/when/where/and why
of things. But I'm just wonderin:
when your bad self and your good self collide and exchange greetings,
but those two selves just can't seem to negotiate, do you choose one
or just abandon
the entire operation? When does your devotion to the cool
override your mama's steel hand against your
pretty backside?
This is all just information/stacks n stacks of things
that are meant to be felt and then archived
in the word-bank
of the body. I am wanting to fold into you
(marrow and the other parts)
realizing that I am better at collecting broaches
than spring cleaning/knowing now that the pile-on
is a way of letting the years mold to your arches
like that first pair
of Sunday shoes.
***
When losing a shoe under the family room sofa
and losing a birthstone in that swamp down the road
you will find that the shoe was merely
misplaced (between rows of anemones
and wash basin water).
you will find
that there are openings in rooms where
bodies have gone missing/ in caves
and pastures,
alike.
Ms. Loretta down the street, who smells of hibiscus and sorrel, loves to dig
for information about my mama/my report card/
my personal happenings after she leaves a smattering
of lipstick across my cheeks
honeypie sugarplum baby/After she mispronounces my name seven times
then leaves a ribbon of her scent across my blouse. See,
there is a difference between digging up the soil to get to know the earth better and
diggin
just to dig.
If you spot a row of peonies and start picking at them just
to get a sweet glimpse of the roots, well,
the flowers just won’t wanna
bloom for you. If you
plant a row of peonies and tend to them everyday like you birthed em
then
you’re swimming. Then
you’re on your way to unearthing
what's at the root
of things.
Lauren Nicole Nixon is a teaching artist, choreographer and poet. Nixon received her M.A. in Arts Politics from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. Nixon’s poetry has been published in What You Do| Eat a Peach, RELEASE, Hail, Muse. Etc! and No, Dear. She resides in Brooklyn.
THE NEW
RULES OF
W R I T I N G
ISSUE:
S P R I N G
2011
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