The
night is cold
I'm
sleeping in clothes again,
laptop
computer at my side --
if
I flicker awake at 3 am,
I'll
be able to quell my panic
CNN
online, ABCNews
the
screen becomes the mind
the
thought, the consciousness --
Sumgait
was a dream until
chemicals
soured the births
&
tumors & lakes shimmering green
&
if the ache rises up in spite of this,
I'll
send you an e-mail "hot Hot HOT"
all
the while shivering, clicking
over
& over & over RETRIEVE "get mail"
just
in case, hope against hope,
you're
awake, too
at
this witching hour --
I
say I'm in love
maybe
I really believe it, too,
truth
is, it's the best I've ever felt;
if
I had more sense,
I'd
be weeping, not so joyous & free.
I
e-mailed you photos of my sister,
supposedly
of me, an experiment
to
see if you could tell the difference
an
image neatly altered
cut
& pasted against
magnificent
world treasures
neither
of us has ever been
all
that, to deflect reality
forestall
the day of reckoning
the
Union collapsing
mile
upon mile of factories crumbling
demand
gone
redundant in the blink of an eye
my
skin smells of ethylene.
Ten
years of nothingness.
whoever
thought it would come to this?
at
first the talk was all "new alliances,
new
opportunities, new futures"
but
stuck in old housing
newly
crumbling around our ears
I
spent a year making love
a
block away from where I lost my virginity
flashbacks
age 19; an older guy (26) fresh from Vietnam
chainsmoking
away the futurelessness
crawling
beneath his skin; chemicals bubbling
into
some unnamed aquifer where dreams are manufactured
the
nights crawl by & down stairs
creaking
& dark & lonely
I
hear Russian; it is the language
of
infinite irony, infinite juxtapositions
like
making love when time converges
later?
earlier?
a
mile away I see me, disassociated
me,
watching me be raped
in
the dry, toxic grass
sky
lurid, reflected in the mudpit
and
the rig,
gears
grinding as hands
make
connections; most roughnecks
are
missing fingers;
breezes
carrying grit
from
lakeshores crusted w/salt
and
alien chemicals; mutilation the norm
pure
& simple -- the Outsider
takes
the best,
leaves
the rest to "heal"
&
now I call it "making love" and that I "chose"
that
evil leprechaun sneer.
I
stain the floor with my tears
shower
w/bleach & my skin stings
so
I refuse to bathe for days;
moral
paralysis always feels this way
I
miss you
curling
twisting into your shell
you
protect me;
I
crave poppies, poppies fields of poppies
white
silence injected into my soul --
cover
me with your shell;
my
laptop computer next to me in bed
I've
flickered awake, it's 3 am
are
you there?
I'm
taping laminated prayer card
to
the case I fear to open,
Our
Sacred Lady, Our Hope in Toxic Places
Protect
Us, & then I send you this,
my
sister cut & pasted
onto
a cathedral far away; my heart
adhered
to the sky w/petrochemicals;
I
tint the door to Hell
with
my Red October lipstick
the
night is crumbling
about
our ears, the voices are cold;
I'm
sleeping in clothes again
missing
you; heaven & hell converging
I'm
on my knees crawling
this
dry, toxic grass of memories
Sumgait
or wherever I am today
my
past tastes like plastic
extruded
& molded & shipped in pellets
poured
into boxcars to nowhere --
it's
three am
I
type
Are
You There?
my
messages floating somewhere
between
polymer screens
directed
to you,
in
transit to God
--
january 26, 2000