A Raincoat, A Spell of Rain Ago
An incompleteness ago
my fingers and turpentine nails,
laser hairs standing cold.
The market of twilight,
horse left on the monument,
six legs, one raised as a rifle,
his man like an apple in a barn.
Red on red on red on red.
An incompleteness ago;
the earth and a terracotta cup,
the earth a finger of whiskey,
the earth a freezer of corn.
An incompleteness ago:
a mint melting in the bath, a mint
in pubic hairs and fingered dust,
a mint of dimes, pennies, nickels.
A quarter a quarter a quarter –
call it an incompleteness ago.
When the foundations opened,
the words were all magnets.
An incompleteness ago
a baby almost ate a banana. Small
spoons, small spoons small
incompleteness ago.
The sinks are still buildings,
the counter a revolution,
the gorillas in the kitchen
the coal train – an incomplete
the bruised boy – an incomplete
the candy shop – an incomplete
the tractor trails – an incomplete, no
incompleteness ago. No grief ago,
no moons ago, no alone ago,
no tires ago, no buzzard pond ago,
no dream ago, no Freud ago,
no pickled vans ago, no cherry ago,
no pits, no canyons, no shaved rocks
of ice from an incompleteness ago.
No red no red no red no
water for boil, no bottle,
no bottle for punch.
No gum. No shoe,
no shoe detective for my life.
No narrative, no born,
lived then died.
No tomb, no ash, no clay.
No bones, no dice
no smoke, no fire. No ants
on the way to mango.
No incompleteness,
no raincoat for the rat-ta-ta,
a raincoat ago. A dog ago.
A hat ago, a love ago, a week ago
there was only no.
No gas, no trucks, only tunnels.
Only pavement. No food,
only smell.
No song in my voice.
No voice.
First published in Gutter Issue 5, 2011.
