Monday, February 15, 2010

Hanging Bed Sheets
That man you’re fighting with, 
He called tonight
While you’re tugging shoestrings 
off the skinny clotheslines of a trailer park childhood 
and peculiarity bloats the ombligo of sky,
beneath the cackle of splintery electric poles and
tweaked-out Clowns swapping bumps, beneath stars
that droop like bolts of sweat, 
you’re pinching salt near eyelids and
sponging boot prints off your cheek, and 
haphazardly, the man inside me is wiping 
scuff marks from floorboards 
where the dancing occurred.  
In thunderstorms and nightmares, 
My abuelo used to strip our beds and 
hang the bed sheets, stained and
fending off impotency, over all the mirrors of the house.
Other nights, he’d clamber up the roof and piss a
golden pain as we’d all switch off turns attempting 
to coax him back to bed.  And that’s how I learned
to hang bed sheets in front of mirrors.  
That man you’re fighting with,
He called tonight.

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