About the Author
POPULAR
LONGING
Man at His Bath
Six years ago, the big museum sold eight famous paintings
to purchase, for unspecified millions,
Gustave Caillebotte’s MAN AT HIS BATH.
Now it’s hip to have a print of it,
and whenever I see one hung for decoration,
I’m almost certain that this is what Caillebotte
had in mind when he broke out the oils
in 1884: some twenty-first-century bitch in Boston
catching a glimpse of a framed reproduction,
recollecting a study about how washing oneself may induce
a sense of culpability. What I remember
is he insisted I clean before leaving. That, and he was
trying to be dreamlike. He took my jaw in his hand
and said IN THE NEXT LIFE, WE’LL REALLY BE TOGETHER,
and the clamp in his voice made me almost
certain he knew something I did not. Now I eat right,
train hard, get my shots. This life—I’m angling
to remain in this life as long as I can, being almost
certain, as I am, what’s after—
I do not like money, neither for itselfnor for what it can buy, as I wantnothing we know about.
René Magritte
My Hair Is My Thing
The symphony’s out of funding again, and no
wonder: all those violins, the twisted strands
and sponges—who could not think
of torture? Last week I read a novel about a man
so awful that when he died I wept
because it was fiction. I wanted it to be real
so I could watch him really die.
I wanted you to die also, and to be feted
with a lengthy, organza-filled funeral,
so that I could make a big show
of blowing it off. I decided to go out
and get a tattoo of your funeral with me not there,
but apparently it’s illegal here to tattoo
a person who’s crying. The trend now
is to be interred with beloved possessions:
pearl-trimmed gun, gold watch,
whatever you’ve got. Some people recoil
at the waste of it, but not me. These contused little
objects of wealth—they’re disgusting. I just
pray we have earth and shovels enough. I pray
we have bodies enough to bury them all.
The Suggested Face for Sorry
You and me—we are the opposite
of twins in an old story.
When I am in pain, you don’t feel it.
If I up and retch, you never guess.
The city laid out poison
along the tunnels and tracks, meant
for rats, and one day my dog ate some.
She was fine. I’ve never been
so jealous in my life. I want to do
the things we do to die,
and then just take off sprinting
in the steep ravine. In my dream,
I walk my dog and you cross
our path and she torques at you
and rears and snaps. She senses
you are wholly bad. They say animals
can tell, like with earthquakes.
You’re supposed to scan the classifieds,
searching for a sudden spike
in the number of missing pets. That’s
how you know to prepare. Maneuver
away from shelving. Crawl
to the nearest doorframe. Get out
of California. What are you waiting for.
Lying Is Getting
to me. The high-ups instructed me not to tell their dad
about the particulates—the last
time he caught them polluting, he made them sit
themselves down right there and eat a whole smokestack.
I keep nodding when the city insists I stick
with the story of accidents—she was cleaning
her gun, he was cleaning the recessed
