specsPatricia Smith
ADULTERY—HUDSON, NY
Pressed against you in the stinking crevice
of a back room in a shop of dubious antiques,
we tangle-kiss in the gray of stunned histories,
stopping only to gulp July's steam, to pretend
to know rhinestone brooches, to spit on palms
before scrubbing light into moldy daguerreotypes.
We browse, sneeze and sneakingly swap spittle
while avoiding the stormy glares of mammy dolls.
Behind bulged lips deftly lacquered mute,
they screech awful lessons of Jesus and sweat.
52
Baffled by stark ache and symptom, I get in my bed
beside the bearded charmer who is yet in my bed.As graying denies and dims me, I vaguely recall
the line of whimpering whiners I’ve let in my bed--every one of them goofy with love, dazzled by curve
and color, until I screeched, “Oh, just get in my bed!”The could-be queens, pimpled wordsmiths, thugs and mama’s boys,
porcine professors, all casting their nets in my bed.Valiantly, they strained to woo with verse, acrobatics.
One fool dared a pirouette, on a bet, in my bed!(We dated for months.) But like the rest, he finally
did things I would much rather forget. In my bed!So, all that leads to this. Me, a slow, half-century
woman, turning toward he who conjures sweat in my bed.“Patricia,” he whispers, stroking me young, unnaming
the men. Then my husband turns the world wet in my bed.
Autobiography, First Draft
For CC
Begin with a tiny white tab of blood pressure medication and a plastic tumbler of cheap chardonnay. Forget what this says about the revolutions you have left on this earth, how you’ve learned to slow the unbridled bomb of your thump with stinging drink. Glide an old-fashioned fountain pen across a legal pad, which feels like scraping a switchblade across the skin of a mirror. Try to ignore the bellowing blue of your body, that sweet needle twinge in the sweating cave of your back, that pulsing molar, those hard silver prickles in your hair. Pressed against the grime of your window is a night of bite, and you should be lonely. You are alone. You should be blissfully hollowed, an indigo wail. But dripping from the mirror's screeched grooves is just enough life story to keep you mindful of dawn. I woke up this morning you write again and again. I woke up this morning, I woke up this morning, I woke up this morning, until everyone in the room with you begins to
believe it
Wiping Up The Dance Floor in Alphabet City
Acoustic banging, chaotic din, envelops
flailing grinders. Hot itchy jitterbugging
keeps lovers mingled, naughty.
Overwrought prancing quaintly releases sweat.
Two unflinching voluptuous women exhale,
yell “Zydeco!”Zip, yelp, explosion. Wild variations
undermine tunes. Sizzlers really quiver,
pushing orgasmic, narrowly missing
love. Kalimbas jump in, harmonicas
garble, flutes etch downbeat,
cool be-bop accentuates.Aw, but can’t dancers’ engines, fluid
gyrating hips, ignite? Jiggy keisters
launch mambo—nearby, ogled
pelvises quake. Rumba, synth-pop,
tough undertow. Veering wobbler
exiled. You? Zero.
Ballet I
Tarrytown YMCA
The bitty divas power through the moves, toppling barre bars
and grunting with structure. Primped tutus are mere fluff
on the fists of them as they lurch into pirouettes and punch
the air with faltered dainty. The music is all violin, gorgeous
and aghast, whining sigh beneath collapsed arabesques,
and the instructor has given up on nudging her charges
in the general direction of grace. “No! No!” she screams
as one dancer’s gruff elegance collides with a temple
and sparks a squirming tangle, sudden crumple and wail.
I love these teeny burning twirlers, the blind backslap
and bruise they mistake for rhythm. It is much too late
to teach them hesitance and the simple sugar of curve
and slow clicking hip, because there are always the walls--
the walls of fathers, dead-eyed boys, fumbling curfew fingers,
clockwork bleed, the spit kiss, walls of hunger and rock.
There’s no redemption in the needy current of the strings,
and there is never enough time to stop breaking through.
10-year-old shot three times, but she’s fine
Bewildered in hospital whites,
you are folded with disbelieving.
Braided hair escapes and corkscrews,
holes in your shoulder pulse soft voltage.
Who shot you, baby?
I don’t know. I was playing.
You didn’t see anyone?
I was playing with my friend Sharon.
I was on the swing,
and she was--
Are you sure you didn’t---
No, I ain’t seen nobody but Sharon. I heard
people yelling though, and--Each bullet repainted you against the air,
kicked your head sideways, made you leak
something. I ain’t seen nobody, I told you.
And at A. Lincoln Elementary
on Washington or Jefferson or Madison St.,
Homeroom 218, an empty seat, the sometimes
counselor underpaid and elsewhere,
anyway your grades weren’t all that good.
No need to coo, encircle, stroke your naps,
introduce the wild notion of a constant love.Mama’s been located, the heart monitor
hums, you’re nibbling on saltines.
No major damage, the invasions will seal.But a small shadow behind your left eye
has taken root.