I started to read Susan's poem while the chicken was in the oven. Right in the middle of the levees, the doorbell, the dog's sharp bark. I opened the door to watch the truck drive down the street in the dark, let the damp of new snowfall in the mountains come in with the two books I ordered, "Here, Bullet," by Brian Turner, and "The Wisdom of the Last Farmer," by David Mas Masumoto. A California veteran and a California farmer. I sat down to read first lines while the chicken crackled, and I opened the Fat Bastard Pinot Noir (read: cheap) and thought about Susan's poem. The lines that I read were these: "Peaches and nectarines are blooming, and grapevines are pushing out pale green buds with miniature bunches of grapes" (Masumoto 3); and "A murder of crows looks on in silence" (Turner, "Body Bags," 14). The phone rang. An offer from a man to refinance my credit cards at a lower rate, consolidate my debt. Lordie, I should pick up the receiver. I pick up the glass of wine instead.
Yet everything in my world is tempered glass compared to this poem of Susan's. I read on through the antisentimental poem "Body Bags" by Turner to the very last line: "Last call, motherfucker. Last call." He writes it in italics. As a line, it's not much, but as an Iraq war veteran's sentiment, it's everything.
I am remembering how peaceful it was in our workshop room in the afternoons in Fayetteville in Kimpel Hall, the reflected sun on the mountains making the cross on Mt. Sequoia glow just a little bit more than it should have. I'm thinking that Susan could edit some of the journalism a little, intensify some of the coke, some of the fear. Yet the poem seems true as it is, too, and these days, I can only say it is sentiment enough, but maybe it could use a little more darkness. I ate a whole container of arugula greens on my first read through Susan's poem, and I wanted to taste the bitter turnip greens.
I am going to read it again. And I am going to post a poem here, a draft, that I hope you will all comment on, too, that I was afraid to post at first because it is so dark. Here is the poem:
Reasons to Get Well
for Ric
Death by alcohol is the noisy way to go
taking the whole family down with the wreck
a swath of unfinished business floating there
on the surface for everyone to see –
ambergris, upholstery spanked with wine,
base element for all manner of perfume
scented throughout the house let’s not
forget the family
lurid in their cups, how they suffer
drowning in the wake, seeking out
a mate at the local suds-n-brew
their laundry spinning while popcorn
pool and television come in free.
Recovery is a funny word here, like anyone
can just get over it. Remember?
Father in his bloodied sheets, damn crazy,
asking why we have to leave now
his knuckles open on our faces
his anguished words like ballad lyrics
quarter time a heartbeat shy with
lucidity only just at the end –
Alcoholism should go like cancer, quiet
creepy, undisturbed, with a nice epitaph.
~Kathryn Gessner
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