THE LION
decades later when there’s nothing left
and all the creatures you knew have died or changed or gone
the trainer reappears
you wanna swat her
claw her
but you also want her to hold your head
which has grown heavy with days
to pet your nose which is dry and cracked
she sneaks you into a fancy hotel
where no lion should ever be
to reenact when you were wild
when you knew no words
and this woman held mice by the tail
and dropped them in your mouth when you followed her commands
she was stronger than she looked but you broke her
and found a place to rest inside her
she broke you back
made her own place inside you
but it didn’t stop the terrible pain of captivity
and her human pains
her womanly pains
it couldn’t stop those either
TENSION, HUMILIATION, AND FEAR
This workshop will study tension, humiliation, and fear. Strangers, static, sirens. When to slow down and when to speed up. Intimacy/chaos. Everyday anxieties. Cracks in reality. Chemicals in the water. A troubling two-minute dream that plays all night on loop. Oil leaks, nuclear waste. The man watching us over his newspaper. The child bitten by a baboon spider. Students will be locked in bathrooms, dropped from helicopters, left in mazes. Ignored, lied to. Interrogated, abandoned.
AFTER WE HAVE SEX
I close my eyes and see inside a bodega
blue-black with the lights off
stacks of things on metal shelves
the thin pages of daily papers fanned at the corners
I see a basement rec center closed for winter break
soft squares of overcast sky through high squat windows
illuminating the plants looking nonplussed in their pots
and the ping pong table where a ball rests under a paddle
I see a living room from the ‘70s
scratchy vertical blinds attached with ball-chain
moving drunkenly against each other in the wind
I see a new Home Depot gazebo sitting in a musty garage
a tract of land under an overpass where dead leaves collect in fall
an abandoned mall where pigeons nest on a statue’s head in the fountain
and fly out through the missing windows of the food court atrium
I see a waitress smoking against the cook’s old silver convertible
as streams of cars progress slowly through rush hour traffic
why am I seeing a young boy feeding his bird?
the beak pecking the soft skin on his hand
I see religious ceremonies from a great distance
like I’m orbiting the planet on my way to somewhere else
I see the beginning of the world
but it looks eerily similar to fireworks and lava lamps
why am I seeing construction workers vaping in the shade
on their third break of the morning
and why do I get the sense that there is a rift between them
that began with what radio station to listen to but now has become vast and abstract
what is making me see two old women sitting side by side at a piano
experimentally touching keys creating discordant sounds
how come I see scenes in a little realm to the left of my eyes
in a spot that for so long has been vacant
why has my mind split and become two people
one who talks and one who listens
one who writes while the other reads
