A Living, Breathing Nest
Your sound is faultless
pure and round
holy
almost profound
—Gregory Corso, from “For Miles”
The way you lay on your side—
nestled, burrowed into bundles in bed
leaning too hard on one asleep hand
‘til the numbing pricklies take over,
I feel that, too, in an iciness ironing my arm
And when we bite from the same block of cheese
your psychic spearhead pierces the dreamscape
a sort of Mary Poppins-esque side-scrolling animation
our glossy faces whistling to our own snazzy tune
In this mighty space—
ricochet your rhythmic wheezes
let the uncovered windows bathe this basilica in light
Our spirits motionless targets, still, for the passing celestials
Ted needs to get his flaming chariot home
before his sleigh ignites the barley fields
We be two trees growing together—
or in my case, a forgetful squirrel
and her a literate squirrel, carrying a map and spade
lodging in the branches of a gorgeous oak
Sprouting its grove, thriving in symbiosis
Outlast the daisy, out-live the fly
do it dozens then hundreds of times
Snuggle in blankets down close next to me
bring forward this atheist prayer
Snuggle in these moon-soaked sheets
let’s love triumphant there
Annual Heat Death
The chill breath of fall is a misnomer—
in autumn the world stops breathing.
Direct the hallowed serenity that is hibernation,
temporary widespread death of grasses,
blue flag iris shedding its fingers
before being utterly buried in leaves
which themselves wet and lay—
its crushing blanket eliminating oxygen
transfer—the butterfly weed and fly carcasses
and hedgehogs and bats all stop breathing.
The lobelia cardinalis is a red trumpet no longer,
but crushed petals under preparing mama bear.
And when that first frost snap hits the ice,
beautiful and bountiful, covering twigs and browning
grasses, frost webbing slewn across the canvass—
a shame so many eyes are closed.
Tell me when the last breath is uttered
if things will still be beautiful when I die, too.
Unnatural Comfort
We loved that couch: cream-colored, firm, soft. What a wonderful thing to have firmness to rest the ass into, how warm to have the German Shepherd leaning against your arm while Cheers cascades across the living room. That supportive firmness is a measure of home—one of the few stable foundations of a house cracked by alcoholism. Imagine our confusion when our stepfather pulled that cream-colored foundation onto the porch to vacuum, but instead of sweeping he laid next to his bottles on the basement concrete. My sister and I weren’t strong enough to pull it back in, though we tried. The living room carpet was muddied with the heavy, treaded work boots used to anchor our prepubescent counterweights. And we couldn’t wake the drunk before the thunderstorm—so saturated, it sat on full display for the neighbors to see from April ‘til September, collecting its new ecosystem. What a meal for children to digest: that supportive tissue shredded and ignored, like a dog told how good they are before the family heads off for vacation and the sitter doesn’t show. How curious to witness the one comforting aspect of home defiled, our home’s amenities soiled due to neglectful carelessness. What an impactful revelation to tell the world that we lacked a place to sit in our own home.
sunrise—
among the trash
bugs inject eggs
you can never give a suicidal your condolences
my uncle liked to dump sugar in soup
or replace a fruit salad’s grapes with olives
and whoever told him “hey, you got the wrong bowl,”
well, they profoundly misunderstood his intentions
hard to get this across, but. SSRI’s or not,
it’s less sad to miss heaven than many learn to interpret, so think
a dog heading into the woods to die
is not the same as one licking a bee-stung paw
nor is St. Vincent’s emergency lock-up ward
the kind of sunrise promised by clear mental health
Backyard Poverty
we’ve got this self-obsession with entertainment
installing seven elevens and cash for gold places
picking up microwaves and busted fridges
to hawk with whatever Rod surfaced
jacking copper piping in roach bundles
bound and tossed in a nondescript rusted truck bed
let’s watch — the wreckage from the bay window’s getting old
faster than cedar grows, every neighborhood falling down
each cornfield now its own Brooklyn back alley
because here’s the god-honest truth—
while Ruth and Bruce are struggling to pay dues
and their kids act out through slammin’ vodka, smashin’ mailboxes
that community isolation and into-the-fray-cation
from East 54th all the way to the train station
just know the hooker in his polka-dot bra
who smells too much like curdled yogurt never saw himself here
he wanted to be a fireman or a scientist
who besides the greedy
think we work the Walmart and Wawa for fun?
who thinks the enchilada slinger
Taco Bell pays Jennifer eight twenty-five an hour
means she’s lazy? why the people
the gripers and cultural snipers kite
high-minded nonsense about cutting back
on our seeded breads and special coffees
then ripen new trite like how long
drive thrus have become. what is you?
who, besides the needy,
could possibly understand?
when will they purposely buy postage stamps
before things fall apart
before the great winds come
end at a roadside produce stand, gun in hand
so those sprouts worming toward your heart die with —
what is leftovers
if the fridge was left open all weekend?
what are kids when they grow up and ask
what on Earth went wrong?
Jeremy Jusek is Parma’s poet laureate. He has authored three books: We Grow Tomatoes in Tiny Towns, The Less Traveled Street, and The Details Will Be Gone Soon. He hosts the Ohio Poetry Association’s podcast Poetry Spotlight, runs the West Side Poetry Workshop, and founded the Flamingo Writers’ Guild. For more info, visit www.jeremyjusek.com
Chantarelle's Notebook 