Jones - Prelude to bruise

PRELUDE TO BRUISE COPYRIGHT 2014 Saeed Jones COVER AND BOOK DESIGN by Linda Koutsky COVER PHOTO Syreeta McFadden Coffee House Press books are available to the trade through our primary distributor, Consortium Book Sales & Distribution, . Coffee House Press is a nonprofit literary publishing house. Support from private foundations, corporate giving programs, government programs, and generous individuals helps make the publication of our books possible. We gratefully acknowledge their support in detail in the back of this book. Visit us at coffeehousepress.org. [Poems. [Poems.

Selections] Prelude to bruise / by Saeed Jones. pages cm ISBN 978-1-56689-384-8 (ebook) I. Title. PS3610.O6279P74 2014 811.6dc23 2014008086 For my mother Nam-myoho-renge-kyo The man in ecstasy and the man drowningboth throw up their arms. KAFKA A voice mistook for stone, jagged black fist thrown miles through space, through doors of dark matter. Heard you crack open the fields skull where you landed.

Halo of smoke ruined the sky and you were a body now naked and bruised in the cratered cotton. Could have been a meteorite except for those strip-mined eyes, each a point of fossilized night. Bringing water and a blanket, I asked, Which of your lives is this, third or fifth? Your answer, blues a breeze to soak my clothes in tears. With my palm pressed to your lips, hush. When they hear you, they will want you. Beware of how they want you; in this town everything born black also burns.

Small with wild legs, the boy stole your eyes the day he was born. In a language youve tried to keep from him, your name is mother of sorrows. When he does not answer your latest call, dream him grown and gone: far off, a vial of your tears on his nightstand. In the autumn of his blood, he will siphon your hurt to a child dying of thirst; the only inheritance of worth in the village of your synapses. Butfor nowhes still your boy. Sweet little wreck.

Check the room youve locked him in. In place of no, my leaking mouth spills foxgloves. Trumpets of tongued blossoms litter the locked closet. Up to my ankles in petals, the hanged gowns close in, mother multiplied, moretherere always more corseted ghosts, red-silk bodies crowd my mouth. I would say no, please; I would say sorry, Papa; I would never ask for mother again, but dresses dressed in dresses are dresses that own this garnet dark, this mouth. These hands cant find the walls, only more mothers emptied out.

Her blue dress is a silk train is a river is water seeps into the cobblestone streets of my sleep, is still raining is monsoon brocade, is winter stars stitched into puddles is good-bye in a flooded, antique room, is good-bye in a room of crystal bowls and crystal cups, is the ring-ting-ring of water dripping from the mouths of crystal bowls and crystal cups, is the Mississippi River is a hallway, is leaks like tears from windowsills of a drowned house, is windows open to waterfalls is a bed is a small boat is a ship, is a current come to carry me in its arms through the streets, is me floating in her dress through the streets is only the moon sees me floating through the streets, is me in a blue dress out to sea, is my mother is a moon out to sea. Asleep on the roof when rain comes, water collects in the dips of his collarbone. Dirty-haired boy, my rascal, my sacrifice. Never an easy dream. I watch him wrestle my shadow, eyelids trembling, one fist ready for me. Leave him a blanket, leave him alone.

Night before, found him caked in dirt, sleeping in a ditch; wet black stones for pillows. What kind of father does he make me, this boy I find tangled in the hair of willows, curled fetal in the grove? Once, I found him in a far field, the mountains peak like a blade above us both. The only regret is that I waited longer than a breath to scatter the suns reflection with my body. New stars burst upon the water when you pulled me in. On the shore, our clothes begged us to be good boys again. Every stick our feet touched a snapping turtle, every shadow a water moccasin.

Excuses to swim closer to one another. I sank into the depths to see you as the lake saw you: cut in half by the surface, taut legs kicking, the rest of you sky. Suddenly still, a clear view of what you knew I wanted to see. When I resurfaced, slick grin, knowing glance; you pushed me back under. I pretended to drown, then swallowed you whole. In this field of thistle, I am the improbable lady.

How I wear the word: sequined weight snagging my saunter into overgrown grass, blonde split-end blades. I waltz in an acre of bad wigs. Sir who is no one, sir who is yet to come, I need you to undo this zipped back, trace the chiffon body Ive borrowed. See how I switch my hips for you, dry grass cracking under my pretend high heels? Call me and Im at your side, one wildflower behind my ear. Ask me and Ill slip out of this softness, the dress a black cloud at my feet. I could be the boy wearing nothing, a negligee of gnats.

After his gasp and god damn, after his zipper closes its teeth, his tongue leaves its shadows, leaves me alone to pick pine needles from my hair, to brush brown leaves off my shirt as blades of light hang from the trees, as I relearn my legs, mud-stained knees, and walk back to my burning house. My whole life, my whole huge seven-year-old life. PUSHKIN In the field, one paw of the lion-clawed bathtub glints in the light. Lukewarm buckets of water carried for miles. And I will pay brightly for this slick body. Unclean under a back-turned sun, I sing the sins that brought me here: I turned the family portrait facedown when he was on me, fed gasoline to the roots of forsythia, broke a mirror to slim my reflections waist, what he calls me is not my name and I love it.

Damask chair beside the tub and on it, handmade armor of bone. Out of the water, in a wet-wheat towel I wake in my unlit room. Father standing at the door. Boys begin to gather around the man like seagulls. He ignores them entirely, but they follow him from one end of the beach to the other. Their footprints burn holes in the sand.

Its quite a sight, a strange parade: a man with a pair of wings strapped to his arms followed by a flock of rowdy boys. Some squawk and flap their bony limbs. Others try to leap now and then, stumbling as the sand tugs at their feet. One boy pretends to fly in a circle around the man, cawing in his face. We dont know his name or why he walks along our beach, talking to the wind. To say nothing of those wings.

A woman yells to her son, Ask him if hell make me a pair. Maybe Ill finally leave your father. He answers our cackles with a sudden stop, turns, and runs toward the water. The children jump into the waves after him. Over the sounds of their thrashes and giggles, we hear a boy say,