What I am about to tell you

1.
What I am about to tell you may or may not matter in the long run.

2.
I have taken to alphabetizing the things in my kitchen. Thus colander next to coriander, dairy next to dishwashing liquid, ice next to insecticide. Anything can be held together by a web of associations: armoire to banister, by virtue of setting. Clavicle to daffodil, by family of sounds. Elephants to falafel because of that day in December, gash to harbor because of that summer with nothing better to do. Illicit to jeopardy, jeopardy to karma, karma to long life or lip service or manual labor, manual labor to never again, never again to on one condition to private practice to questionnaire. And so on. Anything is the truest beginning of what I am about to say.

3.
Words most probably included in what I am about to tell you: accept, again, alcohol, apparently, bakery, be, because, blue, bordering, come, company, continuous, crap, dashboard, definitely, don’t, drawer, end, enough, exactly, fantasy, forget, haha, how, hydrangeas, ink, insult, maybe, modern, more, must, nerve, never, no, of, period, phone, please, psycho, ridiculous, ring, slab, sleeping, sorry, splat, stash, teeth, television, tender, then, there, this, though, thus, very, wtf, yes.

4.
What I am about to say may be said in other words, and these words may be divided into several categories resembling a system of looking at flies: a) detached, with a hint of disdain, b) obligatory, c) doubt replaced by candor, d) having slipped from one room to another, e) borrowed from the library, f) a subcategory of c), g) that which replays itself, h) without resignation.

Selective Memory

1.
For a long time, I went to bed early.

2.
For a long time, I kept records of weather forecasts and went to bed early.

3.
For a long time, I kept what I needed most–a few records, flyers of pizza places, weather forecasts for random distant months–and went to bed early.

4.
For a long time, I kept what I needed most–a few records, flyers of pizza places, the weather-beaten couch where I made up forecasts for random distant months and went to bed early.

5.
For a long time, I kept what I needed most to throw out–a few of your records, flyers of pizza places, the weather-beaten couch where you and I made up forecasts for random distant months and went to bed, never early.

6.
It wasn’t as if, for a long time, I kept what I needed most to throw out–a few of your records, flyers of pizza places, the weather-beaten couch where you and I made up forecasts for random distant months and went to bed, never early.

7.
It wasn’t as if, for a long time, I kept what I needed most to throw out–a few of your records, flyers of pizza places, the weather-beaten couch where you and I made up forecasts for random distant months–to begin with, there was never a you and I, we never went to bed, as it was never too early to tell where we were headed.

Wednesday

On the other end of the phone I keep putting down to look for the refrigerator magnet, you are asking the same question again and again. Nothing is working out. The comedian cracks another joke and a hundred cartoon mouths fill the screen, gnawing stupidly at my reflection. I put my finger on your face, my face, the pizza delivery number, the quotable quote, the postcard from the museum. I scratch the surface, fish out the fake flowers. I want to dream you alive, I say. I have no other answer.

Nobody Does It Better

I am walking down your blathering alleys, July.
I am busting your lightbulbs
and coloring your gray stones
gray. I agreed with you early on,
you know. Nobody does it better.
And so you
polish off my vegetables
and I say, why not.
You screw in the same loveless positions
and I say, knock yourself out.
O July, full of hearkening
and obedience and varieties
of never, I am counting on
your traffic lights and cutting off
my cords, I am playing
your piano keys and tonguing
your toothless grin.
Tell me what you need.
Tell me your infectious secrets.
Tell me about one and one
more and let’s split the difference.
Tell me while I slip you off my back
and slide out of bed to brew coffee.
I’m listening.
I am listening and counting the ticks
and cracking my knuckles.
The day is crackling like spit.
The dust has nothing better to do.
Are you done yet, July?
Are you sure?
I am sharpening the pencils now.
I am smoothing out the pages now.
I am tossing your clothes at you now, July.
Wash that look off your face.
Be on your way.

Method

At last, the mouth opens.
The afternoon steps out.
With it, a ferry, the passage of time.
With it, a turnstile that cannot be unstuck.
There is material in all this atmosphere.
It is almost apologetic. It almost knows.

Where it comes from. The mouth coughs up.
Another mouth. And another. And another.
The afternoons cannot tell themselves.
Apart. The apology attaches to a noun.
It wants to occupy space.
It wants to come back.

How the Heart Misbehaves

Like everything that had anything to do with you, it involved aftertaste, its secrets held office in an apiary drained of dimension and drawn with a stick on the ground, it accused and acquiesced, it acquired landscape and road rage and stuttered its way to every floor.

I pluck it from its station on the shelf. I slip it into a bag it immediately punctures. I tell it to keep still. It gives me no other choice. Quiet now, and the marker poised above the white tag, the word about to be spelled: perspicacious, if not peripatetic, if not pernicious.

By the tenth dream, the phrase astringent sadness begins to acquire color and texture. He stands by the window, squinting at sunlight the way he squints at idiots or road signs, which is to say he is pentatonic by nature, which is neither compliment nor critique. Aphorism #44: You have girded your loins in a most laughable way for this world. Today: You have __________ in a most laughable way for this world.

Short Walk

Took a walk up the mountain to catch a view of the Alps on the other side. To stand in one country and look at another while thinking of a third where you are and I am not.

Based on one sighting, Italian cats are fat, fluffy, snobbish, and orange.

Olive trees, as it turns out, are small.

Blake was fond of filling spaces in between words with the line of beauty. A tilde for every other vacant space.

Based on two sightings, orange things thrive in Italy.

Took a break in an empty shed and wondered what the balls were for.

Ah.

Didn’t manage to make my way to the top. The wind was too strong I thought a tornado was about to hit. Was less scared of the force than the ridiculous howling, which later on, turned out to be all talk.

Two Postcards

First Day

Salutation. Identification of location, time, and view. Description of bus ride and itinerary. Complaint about the weather. Quibble about the inappropriately cosmopolitan feel of structure from which view is observed. Commentary about architecture leading to remembrances of trips past leading to assessment of current company leading to desire for alcohol and sleep. Alcohol granted, funny detail about alcohol acquisition and current company. Acknowledgment of space constraints, expression of high hopes for coming days, subtle longing for absent company, explicit words of love. Yours—

Last Day

Salutation. Identification of departure time. Reference to image. Disappointment over failure to note down title and artist as well as failure to take photographs. Mention of running joke throughout stay, haha. Recollection of quotable quotes from current company and newly learned Latin words, promise to elaborate upon arrival. Acknowledgment of poor handwriting leading to pun leading to reference to film involving pine trees and ’80s actors. Beginnings of funny anecdote… promise to elaborate upon arrival. Admission of pointlessness of sending postcard bound to be overtaken by its sender. Exclamation used to convey recognition of foolish act. Yours—

Masarap makipagkuwentuhan sa ’yo

Matapos ang mahaba-habang biyahe galing trabaho papunta sa inyo—tatlong dyip, isang tricyle, isang eskinitang tadtad ng tambay, turo-turo, tae ng aso—matapos ang pagtulak ng pinto, pagtanggal ng sapatos, paglapag ng bag at dyaryo sa sofa, isang tanong tungkol sa kulay ng blusa, isang sagot tungkol sa bagong bumbilya sa kwarto—matapos ang paghatak ng t-shirt, bagsak ng pantalon, angat ng palda, ungol, halinghing—masarap humiga sa kamang magkatabi, bagong hugas at punas, bihis, at makipagkuwentuhan sa ’yo—tahimik na kuwentuhan, bulungang nasasapawan ng harurot ng mga tricycle, ng walang-tigil na daloy ng tubig mula sa tangke sa hardin, bagay na lagi ’kong kinakabagabag kahit lagi mong sinasabi mabuti na ’yun, malulusog ang mga halaman at talahib, at ang mga pusang-kalye, dyan umiinom sa namumuong batis, mga bulong ng labi sa labi—kuwentuhang walang plano o patutunguhan, tungkol sa baon kong mansanas, sa kasama ko sa trabahong mali-mali kung bumigkas, kanina lang ginamit niya ang salitang triple at ang bigkas niya sa unang pantig ay try, as in subok, try-ple, tungkol sa mga uniporme ng saleslady sa SM, sa tv mong malapit nang mawalan ng silbi, kailangang tapik-tapikin para gumana, di pa malinaw ang channel 2 kundi hahawakan ang antenna—kuwentuhang napapadpad sa mga baduy na kanta nung ating kabataan, sa sari-saring mantsa sa sapin ng kama, sa mga nakakatawang salita tulad ng laplapan, Dirty Sanchez, duiker, pronking—kwentuhang walang hugis o dahilan, mga bulong ng labi sa labi, bulong na may halong tawa, tawang may halong halik, halik na sinlikot ng mga daliri mong…

…

…

… bukkake ang tawag dyan, hingal mo, may nginig sa boses, sa tuhod, nginig na palilipasin habang nakaupo sa sahig sa tabi ko, habang marahang pinupunasan ng t-shirt ang aking leeg, mukha, ang makulit kong ngiti, dala ng tunog-imbento mong salita.

Untitled

1.

The subject heading says look, and when I do, I click on the folder named Files, and inside it, Undergrad, and inside it, Beowulf to Chaucer, and inside it, Paper 1, and inside it, Notes. I drag the photo there.

2.

Your hair falling over your eyes wide open, your hair can barely hide them. What do you want from me? the look says. Or, more accurately: What do you want from me.

3.

The eye directed not at the face but the mouth, not the mouth but the sound that escapes it, the sound swallowed up by the belting of the guitar, track five, circa speeding down the highway to the beach, eleven years old, uncle yammering about the cost of cement and labor for the new room, still unbuilt, for the baby, still unborn.

4.

Before the temperamental streaks of light on the carpet. Before the ants lined up on the sill. Before the stuttering wires, the poker-faced dog, the crumbs on the pillow, the palm against the lens.

5.

Your face in between the thighs wide open, minus hands, minus breasts, minus note to self, minus moment of weakness, minus mouth in the shape of the sound that escapes it.

I fill in the blank:

I fill in the blank:

I fill in the blank: One of three.