if I ever slept
with another man. If youâre on the train
to Cleveland, itâs okay to get off at a whistle stop
but if you donât have a ticket, you have to say so.
Just say what you mean. I couldnât say I didnât love him.
In the little flash of a threat when you know youâre going
to get hurt, you have to live up to it one way or another.
Itâs about listening, but the ear is one of the weakest
muscles in the body. Ten years after the promise
I slit my hand open on a bottle of wine over steak
with a man I thought I could love. The female cuckoo bird
does not settle down with a mate. Now we make her
come out of a clock. I sound like a local
when I give directions. Iâm getting the hang of it.
If you have no ticket, say it. Itâs about knowing
where you want to put the stone in the wall.
You might need to cut that up for me,
since I have no thumbs. When he met the next man
I could love, he mentioned the promise.
Itâs difficult to go back to the land of the paved road.
Once the thumb-sprouts root, plant them.
When they sex themselves, you have to split them
so they donât contaminate each other.
from The Southampton Review
TERRANCE HAYES
----
Antebellum House Party
To make the servant in the corner unobjectionable
Furniture, we must first make her a bundle of tree parts
Axed and worked to confidence. Oak-jawed, birch-backed,
Cedar-skinned, a pillowy bosom for the boss infants,
A fine patterned cushion the boss can fall upon.
Furniture does not pine for a future wherein the boss
Plantation house will be ransacked by cavalries or Calvary.
A kitchen table can, in the throes of a yellow-fever outbreak,
Become a cooling board holding the boss wifeâs body.
It can on ordinary days also be an ironing board holding
Boss garments in need of ironing. Tonight it is simply a place
For a white cup of coffee, a tin of white cream. Boss calls
For sugar and the furniture bears it sweetly. Let us fill the mouth
Of the boss with something stored in the pantry of a house
War, decency, nor bedeviled storms can wipe from the past.
Furnitureâs presence should be little more than a warm feeling
In the den. The dog staring into the fireplace imagines each log
Is a bone that would taste like a spiritual wafer on his tongue.
Let us imagine the servant ordered down on all fours
In the manner of an ottoman whereupon the boss volume
Of John James Audubonâs Birds of America can be placed.
Antebellum residents who possessed the most encyclopedic
Bookcases, luxurious armoires, and beds with ornate cotton
Canopies often threw the most photogenic dinner parties.
Long after they have burned to ash, the hound dog sits there
Mourning the succulent bones he believes the logs used to be.
Imagination is often the boss of memory. Let us imagine
Music is radiating through the fields as if music were reward
For suffering. A few of the birds Audubon drew are now extinct.
The Carolina parakeet, passenger pigeon, and Labrador duck
No longer nuisance the boss property. With so much
Furniture about, there are far fewer woods. Is furnitureâs fate
As tragic as the fate of an axe, the part of a tree that helps
Bring down more upstanding trees? The best furniture
Can stand so quietly in a room that the room appears empty.
If it remains unbroken, it lives long enough to become antique.
from The New Yorker
REBECCA HAZELTON
----
My Husband
My husband in the house.
My husband on the lawn,
pushing the mower, 4th of July, the way
my husbandâs sweat wends like Crown Royale
to the waistband
of his shorts,
the slow motion shake of the head the water
running down his chest,
all of this lit like a Poison video:
Cherry Pie his cutoffs his blond hair his air guitar crescendo.
My husband
at the PTA meeting.
My husband warming milk
at 3 a.m. while I sleep.
My husband washing the white Corvette the bare chest and the soap,
the objectification of
with another man. If youâre on the train
to Cleveland, itâs okay to get off at a whistle stop
but if you donât have a ticket, you have to say so.
Just say what you mean. I couldnât say I didnât love him.
In the little flash of a threat when you know youâre going
to get hurt, you have to live up to it one way or another.
Itâs about listening, but the ear is one of the weakest
muscles in the body. Ten years after the promise
I slit my hand open on a bottle of wine over steak
with a man I thought I could love. The female cuckoo bird
does not settle down with a mate. Now we make her
come out of a clock. I sound like a local
when I give directions. Iâm getting the hang of it.
If you have no ticket, say it. Itâs about knowing
where you want to put the stone in the wall.
You might need to cut that up for me,
since I have no thumbs. When he met the next man
I could love, he mentioned the promise.
Itâs difficult to go back to the land of the paved road.
Once the thumb-sprouts root, plant them.
When they sex themselves, you have to split them
so they donât contaminate each other.
from The Southampton Review
TERRANCE HAYES
----
Antebellum House Party
To make the servant in the corner unobjectionable
Furniture, we must first make her a bundle of tree parts
Axed and worked to confidence. Oak-jawed, birch-backed,
Cedar-skinned, a pillowy bosom for the boss infants,
A fine patterned cushion the boss can fall upon.
Furniture does not pine for a future wherein the boss
Plantation house will be ransacked by cavalries or Calvary.
A kitchen table can, in the throes of a yellow-fever outbreak,
Become a cooling board holding the boss wifeâs body.
It can on ordinary days also be an ironing board holding
Boss garments in need of ironing. Tonight it is simply a place
For a white cup of coffee, a tin of white cream. Boss calls
For sugar and the furniture bears it sweetly. Let us fill the mouth
Of the boss with something stored in the pantry of a house
War, decency, nor bedeviled storms can wipe from the past.
Furnitureâs presence should be little more than a warm feeling
In the den. The dog staring into the fireplace imagines each log
Is a bone that would taste like a spiritual wafer on his tongue.
Let us imagine the servant ordered down on all fours
In the manner of an ottoman whereupon the boss volume
Of John James Audubonâs Birds of America can be placed.
Antebellum residents who possessed the most encyclopedic
Bookcases, luxurious armoires, and beds with ornate cotton
Canopies often threw the most photogenic dinner parties.
Long after they have burned to ash, the hound dog sits there
Mourning the succulent bones he believes the logs used to be.
Imagination is often the boss of memory. Let us imagine
Music is radiating through the fields as if music were reward
For suffering. A few of the birds Audubon drew are now extinct.
The Carolina parakeet, passenger pigeon, and Labrador duck
No longer nuisance the boss property. With so much
Furniture about, there are far fewer woods. Is furnitureâs fate
As tragic as the fate of an axe, the part of a tree that helps
Bring down more upstanding trees? The best furniture
Can stand so quietly in a room that the room appears empty.
If it remains unbroken, it lives long enough to become antique.
from The New Yorker
REBECCA HAZELTON
----
My Husband
My husband in the house.
My husband on the lawn,
pushing the mower, 4th of July, the way
my husbandâs sweat wends like Crown Royale
to the waistband
of his shorts,
the slow motion shake of the head the water
running down his chest,
all of this lit like a Poison video:
Cherry Pie his cutoffs his blond hair his air guitar crescendo.
My husband
at the PTA meeting.
My husband warming milk
at 3 a.m. while I sleep.
My husband washing the white Corvette the bare chest and the soap,
the objectification of
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