Scantily Clad Press, 2009

A and B

We make a plan to move from A to B and so on. That picture of us that sits on the desk. The one with you arms wrapped around my neck. I looked like this, see, and you looked happy – taken the night I brought you to Memphis for your birthday. We drove from specific place to specific place. The Summer Ave. Drive-In (where I gave you two photographs). My old high school (a journal). The parking garage at the Peabody Hotel (Franny and Zooey). Remember, the corner of Second and Beale (holding hands)? How do you not remember?

It was just before we walked in circles, dizzy dizzy from skin touching skin finally for the first time. We took the elevator to the roof, and sat looking out over the city. You asked me to tell back-stories about the skyline. But I was lost and staring at your nose.

I see you here, now sometimes, off in your spot of time, somewhere in the future, a better blip of space. I imagine that you would see yourself in a nicer place, maybe someplace with a hill, a yard, and maybe laundry available 24 hours a day. Can I live there too?

Sometimes I retreat back to the time in my truck, you gave me that Catherine Wheel record and I listened to you hum along. We called it Christmas, as you circled flowers on my palm.

Early on, when I was gone (L.A.) and you were alone (here), I used the Polaroid image of me (shy boy) and you (girl with magic eyes) as my distraction from the present tense.

Placed on the dash, it served as my reminder, spilling a thousand shapes, colors, and words without form, but all shined beautiful. I remember the words would eventually gather and swarm above my head and the only ones I’d pick were: I, miss, and you.

Would this work better if we were both doused in faded yellow? I am in a new mode of guessing.

Digging Ditches

A heat index of over a hundred and humid. I was digging a ditch. I looked down at my foot, watched the beads of sweat drip from the end of my baseball cap onto my shoe. I stared and considered hitting my shoe with the shovel. I thought about how hard I’d have to hit my foot to break it, without cutting into my toes. If I broke my foot on the job, I could go home. I thought about it all day. I started grouping the words together in my mind. I told myself the story of how I broke my foot with a shovel. I repeated it over and over in my head and committed it to memory. When I was done digging, I drove home and wrote everything down.

The Left Margin

Everything here was once written in the left margin Of old notebooks, never knowing it would be seen Or read in rooms repeated then dissected And analyzed, almost more than enjoyed. With nods given in a way not to be noticed Everything’s in place to preside and present, So scared that the reality will be seen And that they might thoughtlessly dismiss me. Who can say, “let go” when it’s the one thing Yes the one thing that keeps me there. To share my soul makes me feel selfish To the point I bear the burden by myself. To follow the collapse would only fan the flame And encourage my indifference everyday. But this is the stuff of every sad song And cannot be helped or healed, but only handled.

Grasshopper Police

Sister, you’d pick the color, and you showed me how to point my fingers like a gun we’d shoot everything that was red. You called it grasshopper police, lodged comfortably in the back of our father’s Jeep Wagoneer. In the very back, you remember – it had that false wooden paneling. We did puzzles at the dining room table in our first house on Crewe Street. I remember yellow walls – they almost seemed stained and there were frilly edges on the tablecloth. I couldn’t make anything fit, my small hands, as dull and useless as mittens. You told me to ask Jesus for help. Does your face still hurt from the rock I threw? Walking the long walk from the bus stop, I was angry and you were there.

Eileen & I

We cling tightly to the left margin, Eileen and I. Leave the gutter clear of debris and let white space cover both sides of the fence. This process, or whatever we’re doing here, reminds me of my uncle Alan and how he danced voodoo around his brokedown plumbing truck, trying to resurrect what’s long gone and dead – and how he loves Bob Dylan. Sometimes we enter the page and get so turned around that we walk backwards and sideways but ultimately we just

Changes to a Poem

I removed “she dyed red with Kool-Aid” from the first line. I felt that it could have worked with it, but it wasn’t completely necessary. I wanted to remove red, because we see red again in the next line and later on in the poem. Then just taking out red would leave “she dyed with Kool-Aid” which wouldn’t work.

I removed “Ashley” from the second line. “Ashley” wasn’t needed, because the speaker was speaking to her as the “you” in the rest of the poem.

I removed “That was the day” from the fourth line. I didn’t think it needed to be said that that was the day.

I removed “Yankees” from the fourth line. I thought it would better to emphasize that it was a blue cap more than blue Yankees cap, because “Blue was truly midnight.”

I removed “at The Barns” from the fifth line. Deleting it pulls the attention back to Robert and the reception.

I removed “shooting” and left it as “A star fell…” I thought “a star fell” made it more somber or solemn than a “shooting star fell.” I liked the phrasing of the line without the “shooting.”

I removed “at the center of the Wesleyan Hills” from the seventh line for the same reasons I removed “at The Barns” from the fifth line. “A star fell and I wished for TJ and the green pond.”

I removed “over Henry” from the eighth line. It is a very specific thing to be crying over, and I hesitated for a moment before I removed it because of the way its phrased, because if that is the only thing that Tova’s mom cried about too much, then it was important to know.

I removed “Bush on” before “the black boombox” in line 9. I liked seeing “the black boombox,/remember? I liked seeing “the black boombox” by itself without anything in front of it.

I removed “was” from the tenth line. This was the first thing I removed.

Evan Dando

The week before my eighteenth birthday [Well I give up] I had my first panic attack [I’ll know tomorrow not to put my feelings out on display] sitting at the kitchen table watching Letterman. [I know a place where I can go, when I’m alone] on a black and white TV [right out of the air] I heard a joke and started laughing [What if something’s on TV and it’s never shown again?] kept laughing and couldn’t stop [wake up baby to the fact that your poor soul’s un-clever] fell on the floor [just as well I’m not invited] Laughter turned to crying [it’s either/or I’m hoping for] I couldn’t stop that either [patience is like bread I say, I ran out of that yesterday] My mother came in and asked what was wrong [Is nothing okay with you? Is nothing okay with me?] I couldn’t talk [just let me walk away] I couldn’t breathe [wasn’t air meant to last] lost control [if I could talk, I would tell you] and I liked that feeling [won’t have to hurt anymore] I let my body stop on its own [you feel it when you feel fine later on] pulled myself off the floor and went upstairs [tossed the beginning and tried to live it down] drank Kool-Aid and listened to my brother’s old stereo [I wanna lie down and listen, I wanna lie down and listen]

The next morning I didn’t go to school [pour the milk and I’ll say when] I wrapped myself in my father’s blanket [something inside me told me you were mine] sat on his side of the couch [my eyes set wet against the breeze] when he got home, he told me to move [something I’ve heard before, but I don’t know when]

I Am On Your Side

You read me the story you wrote about the girl down the street. You said, she was the one who taught you how to hug.

Fourth of July, we drove through midtown Memphis and stole a couch from someone’s front yard. We threw it in the back of your truck and drove like hell.

You and me, on the roof laying shingles. We were father’s cheap labor. You could always drive the nails in with two swings. We listened to Blood on the Tracks over and over.

Stalled at the stoplight, you yelled. I protested. And you said, “This is how I learned.”

Watched as you choked down a pack of cigarettes. These are the things that you say you will do, but will never do: live in NYC become a pastor manage a ballpark

Your brooding led you away. But, I was the youngest – left to make myself. You left with no goodbye, the face of a man, the crooked smile of a child scorned. And you, my brother, What I am to do with you? You will spin off the face of the earth.

Dear Lorine Niedecker

You float on the surface and converse with the fish. I breathe underwater and miss TV.

I Time Travel to Save You From So Many Stupid Things

You see, you have a donut and from where you sit my face looks like squish.

There are a few things I’d like to keep from the unspoiled world, but I’m caught in an accidental nap which does you no good.

I know, briefly of things that belonged to my mother. Lovely. Unreadable.

The shag carpet is full of plastic crumbs, which is not why they trimmed your bangs. Colic. Without shadow

mine is a face that sits, pressed hard like the plastic shell in the quarter machine outside the grocery store, under polished

pockets of human beings wandering, walking backwards and if we are lucky, emptiness arrives and you will crack open the shell and throw

my face and watch it slide down, down the glass and like a tide rushing through me I like how it feels.

Sitting Still

The things I want to say sit idle on my tongue.

The atmosphere is thick with cold, blue stars.

We sit completely in tune, making full incomplete sense and we both agree,

I am like you

the way you are

like me.

But still, we sit motionless we’ve said too much.

This is not how people fall in love.

Notes

“Changes to a Poem” contains lines from “Memory” by Jennifer Steele.

“Evan Dando” contains lines from the songs “Buried Alive,” “It’s a Shame About Ray,” “Into Your Arms,” “Rudy with a Flashlight,” “The Outdoor Type,” “Die Right Now,” “It’s About Time,” “The Great Big No,” “Rudderless,” “If I Could Talk I Would Tell You,” “Kitchen,” “Something’s Missing,” “Down About It,” “Black Gown,” “Hannah and Gabi,” “C’mon Daddy,” and “Half the Time” by the Lemonheads.

Some of these poems have previously appeared elsewhere in O Sweet Flowery Roses, Reconfigurations, Burdock, and Buffalo Carp.

Andrew Terhune is originally from Memphis, Tennessee. He is the author of Handle This Bludgeon and Run Me Through (Tilt Press, 2008) and Helen Mirren Picks Out My Clothes (The Greying Ghost Press, 2009). He currently lives in Chicago with his wife and two daughters. You can find him online at http://andrewisvanishing.blogspot.com.