Читать книгу The Do-Over - Kathleen Ossip - Страница 15

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Lyric

Squirrels are eating my porch it’s their world too

I call the exterminator

Every day brings filthy compromise

I call the vet the cat’s old enough to be neutered

(Just because I’m bigger than he is

Even though he didn’t ask me to take him home

Rarely do the small and mute have things the way they want them)

Everyone’s tired of my patience my turmoil has carried me this far

EVERY DAY BRINGS FILTHY COMPROMISE

When I look a cow or pig in the eyes, I see a person

I don’t feel that way about salmon

I have kept I have lost my religious faith I’m eating a salmon

The salmon died in terror and agony I’m eating him with a vinegar sauce

You’ll like what you are told to like

This we call the reality effect

So many I could love and do not so many I could kill and do not

And walk through the world wearing this white face

(w/moisturizer serums & mascara)

I don’t know anything I observe so closely I haven’t lived

I thought I knew death what did I know

Sylvia and Anne thought they knew death they didn’t know anything

(Didn’t know they were going to die anyway?)

Her body one long tube with an overgrowth in the middle

My friend to be even one more day with you.

(Every day brings filthy compromise.)

I came from salt water in August I swim in salt water

Cancer is my default horror

Fear is not the way for me now I need something bigger?

There’s a crowd of people and animals heading westward on the run

There’s a pack of beasts and people heading westward on the run

Powerless under the moon powerless under the sun

Meaning is made—Wonder has no shade

(Says a placard partway down the Grand Canyon)

These dark days the clouds hide the sun.

Gravity’s a bright snare

(Say I, standing on the edge of the North Rim)

To keep us locked here.

At the mouth of the ravine (we are home now)

the Weckquaesgeeks camped

They fished swam collected oysters and clamshells planted corn and possibly tobacco

We walk every day through a haunted house

Dear values absurd chaotic and tight,

I never want to forget how this feels I will of course forget

Dear values absurd chaotic and tight,

Appraisal makes me nervous aggression makes me mad is true

The reality effect is true

Her body one long tube with an overgrowth in the middle is true

I can stare and stare and still not see it (truth) is true

My life is true my death is true the ravine is true

I wouldn’t pay slave wages I wouldn’t sit down and have lunch with

THEWOMANWHOCLEANS“MY”HOUSE

without checking my texts

Modesty kindness humility acceptance these too are genius

the kinds we need now

CALM DOWN YOU’RE NOT AS SMART AS YOU THINK YOU ARE

This one has no soul and that one has no soul Death is OK for some

In the summer of economic collapse in the summer of widespread famine

(can’t bear to look back have done that in last book)

I execute I exfoliate I Gothicize

What caused the economic collapse me so feckless and dreamy

I’ve been irresponsible I have no pension I will die in poverty

I’m a poetess I’ll be killed and eaten I have no money

I make a beeline for the essential I think I’m so great

(Ultimate putdown of my childhood “She thinks she’s so great.”)

I ride a zipline over the ravine it’s great

Dear values absurd chaotic and tight,

I think I’m so great to avoid losing light

I sit on the banks of the river the bodies of my enemies float by

(Death is OK for some)

salmon Weckquaesgeeks children I’m oblivious of

I don’t want much I want at my best to be most loved

At my most ambitious to be most coddled

I want to be oblivious and kind

I want to be rich and humble

I want to believe in reincarnation an eternity of do-overs

and because I want to

I find the hidden sun:

There’s a crazy bright object stapled to the Western sky

There’s a crown of fire bragging in the Western sky

I’ll brag right along with it I am never gonna die

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