the adjectival snow

Snow day, snowed in, in bed, all day, fond of Hank the Cat, books everywhere, books on Hank, Hank hates perfume, likes my pheromones. Wish I had a tub so I could take a bloodbath. Coffee aftertaste satisfies like mashed potatoes and meatloaf. I like things with delicate chins. I want this and this and these. And maybe these. Why anatomical hearts are everywhere. Why vampires. Why chastity in Bright Star is hotter than sex. Why snow, why Hank?

For J.D. Salinger

Why all the former greats are dying and we’re left
With an empty irony, glib and unsatisfying. I read
The essay by Joyce Maynard online in the Times and looked at
Pictures of her. She’s always touching her neck.
Perhaps Salinger was a vampire.

Everything’s online these days and that should feel exciting
But what it feels is convenient, if not a little desperate.

Technology is a wedge, the closer the farther, etc., but I
Can’t complain, not fully: I’ve been left with only my memories
Before, and I forget quickly. “Stay in touch” too painfully
Ironic to say without my teeth hurting. To type without my fingers
Hurting. In this world but not of it, I talk and you text. I call
And you hang up, you chat, you scroll through pictures of friends,
Lamenting you have none while I tap my foot. People die.

Not just people, but concepts—magazines and newspapers
Give way to ridiculous devices. I menstruate. The New Yorker
Isn't a sympathetic cheerleader for the underdog but instead a snide recycling bin
For aging intellects who wear wire glasses and quartz jewelry.
And nobody even cares anymore. And nobody wants to resuscitate
It. And my students won’t talk or come to my office but want me
To lecture through email. One-on one-off.

My blog has three entries; this makes me anxious. I know someone’s listening

Because someone I don’t know left a comment. It felt like a stranger
Commenting on my bra. But I put it out there; it’s my fault
For trying to be relevant. Then again, what’s the point?

Pump ideas (why is talk about writing always phallic and/or militant?)
Disseminate (see) ideas into the world, because I’m an idea

Machine with feelings that name your feelings? Doctor, doctor, give me the news—

It’s bad, getting worse. And you found it here, self-diagnosed, online.

The problem is space. I can go far away because it’s just like being
Here with you, but not really, because I can’t touch you. Which
Is the second problem. Doesn’t everybody need to be touched,
To touch, even just a handshake, a shoulder brushing shoulder in the street?
Maybe not. I do.

A few weeks go by and my body feels electric, each accidental
Touch lightning. This is why people who are lonely then fall in love feel
“Sparks.” It’s not magic or even chemistry, just loneliness finally relieved.
After a few weeks of pretending the pillow behind me is the softness of your back,
I want to be pressed down. This incredible lightness

I almost start levitating, need your weight to push me down. It’s not sexual,
Though maybe that too, but a need to be contained. Checked. Not an avatar
Not pixels, but flesh on flesh. You realize me.

Resolute

After two consecutive years of vague, carpe-diem resolutions ("live spherically!" "wake up happy!") from which I had moderate, if unquantifiable success, I've decided to go the pragmatic route: be better at correspondence. I'm a writer, for chrissakes. Other than finances, nothing makes me feel guiltier: I've been dodging Henri for almost a YEAR, Norma for a month and a half-- and these are lovely people deserve responses. They probably haven't even noticed the absence of my mail in the post, but I have. So my resolution is to respond to mail within two days of receiving it, whether electronic or paper-based. This should solve late-fee traps, friendships in disrepair (see above,) most student-teacher problems, etc.

First order of business: finish applications for grad schools and be first in line on Saturday at the post office.

Second orders of business: assemble late xmas gifts, make xmas cards, prepare for post. Write thank-you cards but send separate from gifts.

Third: compile manuscripts and email Norma and Henri.

4: finish Aaron's xmas present. Print picture. Print poem(s?)

Oh hell. 226. Refuse to see this as failure before beginning; I have a plan, and the new year can bring only success and happiness... and surely this spectrum of Popsicle-colored note cards from Kate's Paperie could help me get there.

Poet Encounters Nature

Outside smoking on a flipped recycling bin. Broken nest of 3 nestlings in the lawn. Eyes still blind on enormous heads scooped up, placed in a bush, a bird (mother?) caws overhead. Aaron fed them worms we watched move from gullet to belly. Their mouths open like tulips, chirping. Pet their fuzz heads then washed my hands furiously after. The next day gone.

Oxford Town

The air is ragged in the room, fanned
only by her hands; the smell of alcohol
rises from lipstick-bitten cups. Behind

the desk, the radio whirs a signal,
dizzy with war-talk and we listen, lazily
tracing patterns in spilt sugar.

The sun quivers in the window, a water-
color that runs to water. A philosophy
book on the table—Heidegger—gathers dust.

To remain, to dwell, to till the earth— fuck me.
I see the dust collecting as a metaphor
for our dwelling—for our being—in this country

or otherwise. Sweat trickles down her
neck and she sways, listening now to Blonde
on Blonde: she dwells in the now, desires

just to make a few footprints in its sand.
The toil of her fingers betrays
her; she is from ground, builds life from ground, and to ground

she’ll return. In the sugar, she’s written Milky Way,
thinks she’s made of stars, refuses creation as sin
born from dust and rib and an apple-filled sigh.