Teicher - The trembling answers: poems

Copyright 2017 by Craig Morgan Teicher All rights reserved Manufactured in the United States of America First Edition 17 18 19 20 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 For information about permission to reuse any material from this book, please contact The Permissions Company at . Publications by BOA Editions, Ltd.a not-for-profit corporation under section 501 (c) (3) of the United States Internal Revenue Codeare made possible with funds from a variety of sources, including public funds from the Literature Program of the National Endowment for the Arts; the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency; and the County of Monroe, NY. Private funding sources include the Lannan Foundation for support of the Lannan Translations Selection Series; the Max and Marian Farash Charitable Foundation; the Mary S. Mulligan Charitable Trust; the Rochester AreaCommunity Foundation; the Steeple-Jack Fund; the Ames-Amzalak Memorial Trust in memory of Henry Ames, Semon Amzalak, and Dan Amzalak; and contributions from many individuals nationwide. See Colophon on for special individual acknowledgments. Cover Design: Sandy Knight Interior Design and Composition: Richard Foerster Manufacturing: McNaughton & Gunn BOA Logo: Mirko Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Teicher, Craig Morgan, 1979 author.

Title: The trembling answers : poems / by Craig Morgan Teicher. Description: First edition. | Rochester, NY : BOA Editions Ltd., [2017] | Series: American poets continuum ; 160 Identifiers: LCCN 2016045572| ISBN 9781942683315 (paperback : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781942683322 (ebook) Subjects: | BISAC: POETRY / American / General. | FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS / Children with Special Needs. | FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS / Parenting / Fatherhood.

Classification: LCC PS3620.E4359 A6 2017 | DDC 811/.6dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016045572 BOA Editions, Ltd. 250 North Goodman Street, Suite 306 Rochester, NY 14607 www.boaeditions.org A. Poulin, Jr., Founder (19381996)For Simone Table of Contents

ONEEvery Turning Every turning toward is a turning away: poets have always known the truth of this. I read my book because time in my home is senseless and unbearable. I shower so as not to have to face the inevitable crackling of my focus when I read, and I binge-watch The Blacklist to forestall the interminable chore post-shower of drying my desperate and overgrown hair, having also forestalled my annual haircut, which I refuse to attend to daily because I am handsome if I avoid the mirror. But of course none of this is what I am truly avoiding.

Death is shorthand for Death, for lifes uncountable endings and its ultra-vivid catalog of things undone, hopes unfulfilled, opportunities unnoticed so untaken. I could cite lips not kissed or kissed once and never again; high school nights spent grieving high school nightsthey stick in the heart like sharp bones, clog the way like artery-fat; instruments never learnedmy dream of playing piano is already impossible, as is my wise plan never to fall prey to credit card debt. But, obviously, I mean something deeper, an avoidance more futile and tragic, so primary and unnameable I shall be forced to talk around it say everything but all my droning, hasty years: not death but what it surrounds, this one life that is all that I am, prize I fail to value because I mistake it for a consolation against the sting of some other, greater loss. Birdsong, sunset, music unfolding in and out of time, the taste of chocolate blossoming so generously across my tongue, my daughter laughing, my sighing son, warming winter air, waking unworried from a weird, good dream, thousands of orgasms, tongue and thigh and arch, a clean room, alphabetized books on shelf after happy shelf, drunkenness, sleep, crying out and crying over my pain, my wondrous pain. Self-Portrait Beside Myself Weve been luckyMarch is over and my son is still alive. My daughter is about to crawl.

And the golden sunset light recalls distant childhood light. I feed my son while he sleeps through a hole in his tummy when the night nurse has the night off, and when I go to the mirror its to see if the ocean-eyed man the teenager I was had hoped to become is anywhere in there. The teenager is; he wants you to see him, help him, tell him hes strong and gently dramatic. He wants to be part of a story, even if not a true one. He wants to fuck like mad, even if I dont. Standing over my son at night, I feel quiet, only then, no need to be me or anyone, just listening to him breathe.

I can divide all life into breath and waiting for the next breath, and the calm in the troughs between. I wanted to show you I could see the world without me in the way; I cant, not even for a little while. Im beside that man watching over his son, impressed with him and his humility. But if thats what it takes, to keep my son safeadmiring my better self rather than being himthen ok. Thats ok. Free Im free as long as I have this cigar clenched between my teeth, sitting out front, the baby monitor bringing the sounds of heartbeat and breath as far as the tether will stretch.

Im free to think what Id like, beholden to no one in my silence. Im so free Im almost not even me, and the voice in my head could be anyones. Now a golden cat runs byfree. But why begin with the cigar, its foul smoke, with my teeth, chipped as they never were when I was beautiful? Because these are the facts, the few clear facts: my teeth, my teeth are yellowing in my mouth all the time. My thick, weird tongue licks at the tarred, rolled leaves and is blistered and burned. These are among the truths its been given me to tell.

Im free to tell them, scrunched like a toad in my head. Ive not showered in days; my hair is waxy. What a beautiful sentence, its perfectly placed semicolon a reminder of all I can hope to accomplish. Im free to stink of tobacco and sweat and free to tell anyone who cares to know: CraigMorgan Teicher sits outsideof his apartment tonight!Do you hear me? Im outside andnothing will ever make me go in!Night Nurse Lately we invite this stranger into our home to watch over, like an angel or good dog, our son. But she is not angelic, not graceful, her slippers flopping like sad clown shoes. And its wrong to compare this nurse to a dog, especially that kind of dog: trusted, beloved.

We need her so we hate her, even though it ismust beour fault shes here he is our son so we give instructions and thanks before quarantining in our room where we sourly purse our eyes toward sleep while she is paid to guard our son against that more familiar stranger, who should have no business with a child, not now, not here. But endings are always near. Passing our door, her steps sound too like anxious foot-tapping, strangers impatient to leave with what theyve come to collect. TracheotomyThe terrible thing thing was his coughing, as his throat