luxemburger

Paris

She’s in Paris:
she’s not really in Paris.
Paris is her word for the disconnect,
for not wanting to be anywhere.

Tonight she went swimming:
she didn’t really go swimming.
Who would swim in water like this?

But she thought of swimming.
She imagined her body
cold and gleaming under the starless sky.

The formation of her limbs in the river
divining the solution to her problems.

It is better than astrology because
the shape of her body is hers alone.

The line of her arms cutting
through the water in this particular way
tells her to go Here,
wherever Here may be.

The angle of her legs
tells her she should take These Things with her,
whatever These Things may be.

The only thing it can’t tell her
is how to get out of Paris.

There is no divination for this.

I feel kind of amazing right now. JoAnna and I went to this women's-only writing workshop on body image tonight, and I wrote. I wrote! Oh man. I feel like this could be the (re)start of something beautiful.

I read the second and third pieces aloud, and after I read the third one, her professor said, "That's beautiful. Are you a writer?" At which point I ducked my head and said these are the first things I've written in about two years.

(After I read the second piece, she said, "Oh damn that breaks my heart.")

Anyway.

I. (Prompt: this is the story my body was made to tell.)

My body begins and ends with my hips. They carry me everywhere. They are my compass, my guide, my reckless navigator. They make wrong turns and no mistakes. They walk fearlessly where my heart trembles to go. They climb my ladders and skate my rivers and mount my battles. My hips have been measured by the stretch of my thumb to my forefinger when I am nervous, by others' hands, by others' lips. My hips are the rock of my body's faith and every lover I have prays to them. To touch them is to make the sign of the cross.

II. (Prompt: homage to ________ (body part about which I am insecure).)

this stomach is home
it takes more than one hand to span the distance
it clings to my clothing
it is the part of my body that rests
when everything else is tired,
the stomach is what is left to comfort
it is dependable
like the setting of the sun
or the inevitability of heartbreak

the light will come again
love will come again
and this stomach will still be here

III. (Prompt: love letter to yourself and your body at 80-years-old.)

Dear you,

I can't call you by name. It feels arrogant, and I don't like that - but you have existed for this long, so what can it hurt? Sammi. Dear Sammi. You have existed for this long. You have survived. Survived what? All of the things that broke your heart, all of the things that put it back together. The little cruelties. Kisses withheld and touch that meant nothing. Let no one say you haven't been through your own hells simply because you were strong enough to escape them. To withstand them. Be proud of your body and the faith that you could rest upon it, when the rest of the world was upside down. You could always count on the reality of your hips, the weight of your breasts, the art on your back. These were the things in your life that never abandoned you, that you could fall sleep taking inventory of, certain of the results you would find.

Someone used the word 'nightblindness' the other day, and I laughed.

It's funny how easy it is for me to recall that evening. I'd just gotten my driver's license, and I told my mom I needed to get out of the house for a while. She didn't want me to go, but I said I'd be back by a certain time. I drove out on Prairie, and that was weird in its own way, as if I were heading for the airport, as if I were driving into the past. I pulled off onto a side road and parked half in a ditch, and then I dragged my sleeping bag out of the back seat. I don't even know why I had my sleeping bag in the back seat, but I did. I threw it onto the trunk, climbed up myself. I remember the feeling of laying back against the rear window, squinting at the stars. Thinking, thinking, thinking some more - and then writing. I couldn't even see the words on the paper - it was so dark outside - and when I got home, I couldn't read what I'd written because each line was half on top of the previous one, but I remembered the words and I copied them onto another sheet of paper.

It's funny how easy it is to remember all of that, but how hard it is to remember what it felt like just to write. What it felt like to be someone who wrote.



nightblindness

you miss the nightblindness:
being able to fall asleep,
seeing only darkness behind your closed eyes

now you see ex-lovers
with their arms around you,
kissing your breasts until you sleep

and even as you trace the shape of their lips
beneath your nipples, you feel guilty

as if the memory of their kisses
should not be a comfort to you now,
nor ever again

the guilt is brilliantly outlined
by the movement of your fingertips
and it keeps you awake even longer

sullen, your conscience pricks
the back of your eyelids
with constellations

you think of stars, of watching
them with one of your girlfriends:
how sweet her face looked in the dark

(every memory leads to another,
the night is full of them)

Pessimism for Beginners

When you’re waiting for someone to e-mail,
When you’re waiting for someone to call –
Young or old, gay or straight, male or female –
Don’t assume that they’re busy, that’s all.

Don’t conclude that their letter went missing
Or they must be away for a while;
Think instead that they’re cursing and hissing –
They’ve decided you’re venal and vile,

That your eyes should be pecked by an eagle.
Oh, to bash in your head with a stone!
But since this is unfairly illegal
They’ve no choice but to leave you alone.

Be they friend, parent, sibling or lover
Or your most stalwart colleague at work,
Don’t pursue them. You’ll only discover
That your once-irresistible quirk

Is no longer appealing. Far from it.
Everything that you are and you do
Makes them spatter their basin with vomit.
They loathe Hitler and Herpes and you.

Once you take this on board, life gets better.
You give no-one your hopes to destroy.
The most cursory phone call or letter
Makes you pickle your heart in pure joy.

It’s so different from what you expected!
They do not want to gouge out your eyes!
You feel neither abused nor rejected –
What a stunning and perfect surprise.

This approach I’m endorsing will net you
A small portion of boundless delight.
Keep believing the world’s out to get you.
Now and then you might not be proved right.

- Sophie Hannah

Moon Building

_{“i’ve come to ask you if there isn’t a
new moon outside your window” e e cummings}

I didn’t make this mess.

I’d been dreaming of us
mouth to mouth.
Our imperfectly spliced bodies
struggling to unite.
I woke with the ocean between my legs,
blue light swaying on my skin.

I was thinking we could build
a new moon and blame it on that.

Let’s tear up the streets, demolish the buildings.
Make a pile of the rubble and go from there.

We could make a garland of streetlights,
porch lights, floodlights.
We could take the bulbs from all the refrigerators
and the microwaves. It’d shine all day long.

What do you say? Should we
take this crumbling city in our hands?
Should we raise a monument to our desire?

We’d be famous.
“The moon builders,” they’d call us,
while they wished on its electric face.

No one would have to know that
we were just looking for an excuse
or an explanation for these daily seas.

---

( First Draft )

I am in the best mood ever. Colordoku finally works again, which means I finally got my chance to finish Level 5. I absolutely slayed my linguistics midterm this afternoon. I get to sleep in for an extra hour tomorrow morning. Kristin complimented my ass as I was getting ready for bed. I have cold water, and I might get to show off my tattoos in the morning.

What could make this better? OH THAT'S RIGHT. I COULD FINALLY WRITE THAT POEM I'VE BEEN STRUGGLING WITH FOR OVER A YEAR AND A HALF. WHO ROCKS? I ROCK. Sammi for the win! Life is such an ironic, confusing, wonderfully strange mess.

( The Hunter's Great Song )

I think this turned out closer to how I really felt, but further from the assignment.

Oh well.

( The original. )

( The revised version. )

[ETA: ( An IM with my father. )He's a silly man.]

( The Three-Sentence Assignment )

I skipped class today after waking up feeling like shit. I slept most of the day while Kristin read Harry Potter. I love taking naps while she does her homework. Most of the time (like now) I'm the one watching her sleep, but it's comforting to see her looking over me every time I open my eyes.

I don't have The Living and The Dead tomorrow. Normally I'd rejoice at a canceled class, but this just means I have a longer break between my first and second class - an hour and a half, and then two and a half hours between my second and third classes. Ugh. Why can't we just have class?

I can't believe it's week six already. It still feels like the beginning of the semester, and yet here I am, taking midterms. French is an oral, partnered exam, which is much better than writing an essay and much worse than taking a multiple-choice test. I better not choke. I haven't taken six years of French without learning anything, but why does it look that way every time I open my mouth in class? My partner for the exam is in middle school (she spent a year in France with her parents), so I'll feel even worse if I choke. Or maybe I won't feel as bad. I don't know. It's a weird way of testing us.

Blah. We had to revise a poem to bring into class today, and we had our choice out of five poems... but I wasn't going to choose one my AI hasn't graded yet, so that left three, and of the three, this was really the only one I could choose.

My teacher suggested adding in "sensory details" that relate directly to the dramatic situation. I'm not really sure how she wanted me to do that, but I tried.

I'm not sure if I'm happy with the results or not.

( The original )

( The revised version )

The sky was blind to us where we were,
inside that rattling room while you
struggled through that book you needed to read.

Your seat was the first in a train of
hard plastic chairs, mine the second.
We had nearly railroaded ourselves
into the clanking pinball machines.

Across the room, our dryers tumbled
to a stop, and you unfolded yourself
from the orange chair, smiling at me.

We made piles of our fresh clothes on
opposite tables. In my mind, I was already
back at our chairs, stuffing your book into
my bag so that we could leave.

Until you noticed a missing pair of pants
and found them in an un-run washer: dry,
still smelling of you.

Your body stiffened and shrank, and I saw at once
how desperate you had been to leave the busy
laundromat. In another corner of the room,
a married couple argued over how to sort
their lights from their darks.

A streak of sound slipped sadly from one of the pinball machines
as you bitterly dropped the lid of the forgotten washing machine,

but I wanted to take you away from there: away from classes that loomed
over our heads; away from the acrid winter air kept barely
out by a pair of doors; away from that humid room
itself, whose windows ran with a thousand little rivers of condensation;
away from the orange chair where you sat once again,
hunched over your book
and waiting.

Anxiety, the ghost that haunts
her expression, that fills the room
with terror although of the two of us,
she's the only one who sees it
come around.

Anxiety, my invisible second
bride: like a dog who has pulled
off its own collar,
who nips along
at my love's heels;
biting like the initial
sting of novocain that
eventually numbs you,
that you never know how
to anticipate

because the dentist's rubber
hand is already waiting, has
already split the
hinge of your jaws.

the chivalry of suppression

The remnants of aural levitation
Cause occasional linguistic evacuations:
Slow-pixilated dissipation
Of a fragmentary, parametric imagination.

Automated self-treason:
The unwilling participation
Of violet eyelids projecting
By the milli-frame.

The monarchy of her queenly demeanor
Subverted by an algebraic ambition.

Galloping cardial fibrillation,
The memory that terrorizes,
The terrible incessant delineation.

The chivalry of suppression,
Freedom from compulsive repetition,
The possibility of bliss in the presence
Of a somnambulating mind.

The anticipation of emancipation.

Our assignment for this week was to read "Those Winter Sundays" and "Traveling Through The Dark" and then write a poem evocative of those two. I think I did pretty well.

my other life

exchanging stories in the middle of the night with my favorite aunt
when she tells one that makes me feel like
the guy who goes to a magic show on a wet night
only to see the magician pull a dead rabbit out of his hat:

surprise.

like the worker who took a weed for a flower
whose mistake was called out in front of the bee queen.

in the dark room the image of
what might have been develops before my eyes,
fragmenting immediately like the pieces of glass
in a kaleidoscope.

what might have been:
like the difference between a summer sky
and its reflection in an oil slick,
like the difference between day-old coffee
and a fresh cup.

I come bearing content! Sort of.

( A poem! )

( Pictures! )

And now I'll quit posting (geez, three times today after a relatively sparse period) and finish my homework. Because sleep sounds like a good idea.

I am SO PSYCHED about this contest. SO PSYCHED. Last night I re-titled a large percentage of all the poems, and ordered them in a mild semblance of how I would like them in the final version. Some of them are so much better with the new titles. Also, I think I have a title for the manuscript as a whole, "Tigers Have Better Names," which makes me laugh. (Should it be, "Tigers Have Better Titles"?)

Apparently Louise Glück is still the judge of the series. AHH. Louise Glück reading my poetry. SO PSYCHED.

Umm. These are some of my favorites.

( Chlamydia )

( twenty-eight.fivesevenonefour percent truth )

( This Heart of Me(an) )

( Perception is everything )

AND I AM EXCITED BECAUSE MY MIRA CDS GOT HERE AND THEY ROCK. MIRA IS SO COOL.

The Annexation

Reading second-person poetry
it is impossible
not to hear the lurking I in
shadows around the text.

For every written you, there is an unspoken word
from the poet the I:
a word which claims you which never grants
an opportunity for you to completely extract yourself
from the poem again.

A piece, if not more, of you
is inevitably left behind because

of course the unsaid, the rarely stated
is more seductive than any phrase
the poet could craft on her own.

The poet knows it,

and you know too.

The white shadows
filter the unput word from the
page - their function the function
of velvet backdrop -

That is to say the function of the shadows
is to create a blank screen
something newly formed, freshly introduced to the world.

There is nothing but that which the poet chooses
upon them
and why does the poet choose what the poet does?

Why this line not another?
you wonder; the poet knows you wonder.
You know the poet knows you wonder.

The truth is the poet has absolute control:
even the intake of a single line is submission
to her will, to the poet's determination

to alter the white shadows with which you were born
with the tool granted exclusively the poet -

paper, the blank screen,
your own willingness to submit.

I blame the girlfriend, as she read to me Anne Sexton muchly late last night.


My mother asks and I say,
"It was good enough for Sylvia Plath."
Good enough for all the brilliant girls,
and I might be one of them.

So what
might become of me?

The sliver of you is
a sliver in me.
My skin switch-twitches
slick crawl of histories
bound and determined to
repeat themselves in me.

The fight drowns in me,
reading your beautiful poetry.
(I will not repeat.)
I don't write
for days;
my words become your words,
pen echoes pen.
(I will not repeat.)

The sliver of me was
a sliver in you.

I began
a fragment
of a word
in a phrase
of a poem
you wrote
that no one
but me
has loved
this way.

And now
I touch
that fragment
again
I might
be one
of those
brilliant girls.

I might be
daughter, lost Gretel,
secret twin.
At night, alone, I marry the bed.
Mother, landscape of my heart.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

towering trees
I might be
bend shiver when I pass
might be be
leaves scatter fast
be be be

I might be
repeating
your slick histories
might but I don't want to be.

someone with your name is dead.
he died last year:
you found his obituary online,

you imagine from time to time
you are him
your body sank in a stream in Oregon
snipped by slim fish lips
pink salmon kissing your pink skin
the water heat, your body with no temperature

it takes a moment,
something like a purr-
the air touches your face,
to remember:
the air,
not water.

you have not drowned,
you will not sink.