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12,000 Dollars in 3 Months . . .
disband all activates, rip purple cord,
night has come like something crawling
up the bannister, sticking out its tongue
of fire and wailing, I remember the
missionaries up to their knees in muck
going across the beautiful blue river
and the m.g. slugs flicking spots of
fountain and McKelvey drunk on the shore
saying shit shit these Indians
where'd they get the fire power?
and I went in to see Maria
and she said, do you think they'll attack,
do you think they'll come across the river?
afraid to die? I asked her, and she said
who isn't? forgot your Shakespeare?
and I went to the medicine cabinet
and poured a tall glassful, and I said
we've made 12,000 dollars in 3 months building roads for McKelvey and you have to die a little
to make it fast.... Do you think the communists
started this? she asked, do you think it's them?
and I said, will you stop being a neurotic bitch?
these small countries rise because they are getting
their pockets filled from both sides... and she
looked at me with that beautiful schoolgirl idiocy
and she walked out, it was dark out but I let her go,
you've got to know when to let a woman go if you want to keep her,
and if you don't want her you let her go anyhow,
it's always a means of letting go, one way or another,
so I sat there and put the drink down
and made another
and I thought, whoever thought an engineering course at Ole Miss
would bring you where the lamps are swinging
in the green mould of some far night without
hardly the reason
of a clean textbook?
and McKelvey came in with his arm around
her blue waist and she had been drinking too,
and I walked up and said,
man and wife? and that made her angry for if a
woman can't
get you by the nuts and squeeze, she's done,
and I poured another tall one, and
I said, you 2 may not realize it
but we're not going to get out of here alive.
and we drank the rest of the night.
you could hear if you were real still
the water coming down between the god trees,
and the roads we had built
you could hear animals crossing them
and Indians savage fools with some
savage cross to bear,
and the last look in the mirror
as drunken lovers hug
and I walked out and lifted a piece of straw
from the end of the shack
then snapped the padlock, and I
watched the flame crawl like hungry mice
up the thin brown stalks, it was slow but it was
real, and then not real, something like an opera,
and then I walked down toward the m.g. sounds,
the same river, and the moon looked across at me
and in the path I saw a small snake, just a small one,
looked like a rattler, but it couldn't be a rattler,
and it was scared facing me, and I grabbed it behind
the neck
before it could curl and I held it then
and its little body curled around my wrist
like fingers of love and all the trees looked with eyes
and I put my mouth to its mouth
and love was lightning and remembrance,
dead communists, dead fascists,
dead democrats, dead gods, and
McKelvey had his dead black arm around her blue
waist.
© Frank Silvanski
night has come like something crawling
up the bannister, sticking out its tongue
of fire and wailing, I remember the
missionaries up to their knees in muck
going across the beautiful blue river
and the m.g. slugs flicking spots of
fountain and McKelvey drunk on the shore
saying shit shit these Indians
where'd they get the fire power?
and I went in to see Maria
and she said, do you think they'll attack,
do you think they'll come across the river?
afraid to die? I asked her, and she said
who isn't? forgot your Shakespeare?
and I went to the medicine cabinet
and poured a tall glassful, and I said
we've made 12,000 dollars in 3 months building roads for McKelvey and you have to die a little
to make it fast.... Do you think the communists
started this? she asked, do you think it's them?
and I said, will you stop being a neurotic bitch?
these small countries rise because they are getting
their pockets filled from both sides... and she
looked at me with that beautiful schoolgirl idiocy
and she walked out, it was dark out but I let her go,
you've got to know when to let a woman go if you want to keep her,
and if you don't want her you let her go anyhow,
it's always a means of letting go, one way or another,
so I sat there and put the drink down
and made another
and I thought, whoever thought an engineering course at Ole Miss
would bring you where the lamps are swinging
in the green mould of some far night without
hardly the reason
of a clean textbook?
and McKelvey came in with his arm around
her blue waist and she had been drinking too,
and I walked up and said,
man and wife? and that made her angry for if a
woman can't
get you by the nuts and squeeze, she's done,
and I poured another tall one, and
I said, you 2 may not realize it
but we're not going to get out of here alive.
and we drank the rest of the night.
you could hear if you were real still
the water coming down between the god trees,
and the roads we had built
you could hear animals crossing them
and Indians savage fools with some
savage cross to bear,
and the last look in the mirror
as drunken lovers hug
and I walked out and lifted a piece of straw
from the end of the shack
then snapped the padlock, and I
watched the flame crawl like hungry mice
up the thin brown stalks, it was slow but it was
real, and then not real, something like an opera,
and then I walked down toward the m.g. sounds,
the same river, and the moon looked across at me
and in the path I saw a small snake, just a small one,
looked like a rattler, but it couldn't be a rattler,
and it was scared facing me, and I grabbed it behind
the neck
before it could curl and I held it then
and its little body curled around my wrist
like fingers of love and all the trees looked with eyes
and I put my mouth to its mouth
and love was lightning and remembrance,
dead communists, dead fascists,
dead democrats, dead gods, and
McKelvey had his dead black arm around her blue
waist.
© Frank Silvanski
