Dear neighbors,

If your moans collect in my own body, may I say you’ve penetrated me? Certainly, the vibrations you cause to course through the floor and up the chair into my ass allow me to participate in your lovemaking.

Still, I don’t know why I planned for furniture. After my body’s departure, the air mattress delays before popping back to its original shape. It sounds as though somebody were rising from the same bed after me, perhaps to use the bathroom, with the door open, stopping to give me a hug or a kiss on the cheek as she passed. The hall lacks footfalls, however, and I know I’m the only one pissing with the door open.

How ridiculous, then, to have a favorite bulb, but I do, even when it’s been burned out for days before I can find it. I slam doors within me where certain sensations were about to pass in order to be realized. Am I just another hall for you to echo through?

Sincerely,

He said he had a puppy. He'd already talked about his kids. Four of them, and now he said sorry if he hurt her, putting on the tape. He said, You used to be? He'd read her book, the copy she'd left and she said she wasn't, and then he looked for an IV pole. We didn't expect IVs, he said, hanging the bag from a nail where a clock used to be. She was left alone there, and she clung to his last words: his vacation to Alaska, where he went to see a newborn. She felt glum looking at the calendar, wondering why she went so long. She'd known him for a while now. He came back and gave her a list. He spoke of symptoms and she told him it was too late. He told her to keep the pills. He shook her hand five times. He gave her his card. She said to him: Oh my, and then she felt a rush, and then it was thank you. He said to her you're welcome. He was just a guy, and she said hi. He smiled. He laughed. Did he wink?

She Could Play

 
She went to all the hotspots, making it familiar. One place was famous for burritos, another hung, leaving nothing empty. Wings were everywhere. Statues of buffalo. Her new place was suddenly historic, and she woke up opening windows, her Hollywood curtains. One place had pudding, and she ate, licking. She bought a bike and weaved. She wore a helmet and went fast for the detours. Losing her way, but you're never lost. She found a lake that really wasn't. People ran and beeped. She hadn't lived and her husband was elsewhere, and so was her last one and the other, her father with bars. She grew up with cows and land and prayers and she stops at a red for permission.

We Once Stood Soundless

We donned hats and mittens, earmuffs. Our parents only wore coats. My sister and I followed, across the pasture, down the lane, and to the neighbors' farm lot. We didn't talk, and our father went to look at cattle, our mother gathered with the housewives, and my sister and I stood. There were tractors all lined up, and a vendor selling hot dogs. There were hay bales, mounds of straw, and the auctioneer, he was all machine-like, selling off the items: the combine and the spreader, bikes and saws and some things were rusty. He sold a cello to a fellow. The voice, it had no alternating volume, it was like the drinking of hot chocolate without hotness lacking chocolate. Later on at home, our dad went to do the milking, our mother with the house chores, and my sister and I skated on the patch that was a garden in spring. We did loops. We spun around. We sang. She fit into the old skates and I got to wear the new ones. She tripped on a patch where there used to be peppers. She fell, like an angel.

            William, a young man in Cleveland, Ohio marries an extremely beautiful and rich exchange student from Kyoto. She instantly shuns off her heritage, dyes her hair, dresses in ripped jeans and frequently uses phrases like ‘Old School’ and ‘Yaaah...Duh.’ The husband is chagrined. In desperation he copies down her parents number in Japan from her address book and calls them during the day when she is in class. The wife answers the phone but does not speak more than a word of English beyond ‘Cleveland’ and ‘William,’ which she knowingly abbreviates as Bill so as to avoid the choppy pronunciation.

            “Aregato. Aregato. Hi. Hi. Hi,” William pleads before the wife hands the receiver to her husband who does have an understanding of the language due to his business dealings.

            “Macha San,” William cries. (He is so frantic he speaks as if English were his second language.) “There is a problem over here. Yuna is changing, very fast, very fast. She’s becoming like an American. It’s so wrong dude. You must talk to her. You must bring her back to who she was.”

             He hears a breath on the other line. Macha San speaks slowly. “In Japan there is an old saying maybe you hear of it. I believe it translates this way, ‘When in Rome...do as the Romans do.’

Ask for What You Want

Byron, a young man in Racine, Wisconsin with a fascination for older women, places a personal ad in the local paper simply stating, “Older women, come to me.” The older women community is set on its head. Byron is overwhelmed. Almost every night of the week he has dinner with one of them and by the end of two weeks he is broke. But of his ten odd dates some have gone much further than the dinner table. Some have gone on to a room with a bed, a fertile older woman and no protection. Oh Lord Byron, father of us all, hallowed be thy name. In one generation, thy kingdom shall come—in Racine, Wisconsin.

                 Grove Koger Talks with Albert Carroll about the Bogart Presidency

            “Ann Sheridan and Ronald Reagan co-star for the third time in Warner’s Casablanca, with Dennis Morgan also coming in for top billing. Yarn of war refugees in French Morocco is based on unproduced play by Murray Burnett and Joan Alison.”—Hollywood Reporter, January 5, 1942

             With the passage of time and the deaths of many key figures, the surviving members of President Bogart’s staff have begun to speak out. Bogart was famously tight-lipped, but the realization seems to have dawned on his friends and associates that if they want to add their private recollections to the public record, now is the time.

            Bogart’s international achievements and domestic crises are well documented. Now the memoirs of press secretary and confidant Albert Carroll, Looking Back, Pressing Ahead, scheduled to be published next month by Random House, promise to lift the veil on many of the inner workings of the Bogart White House.

            I caught up with Carroll last week in Los Angeles.

            Al, sum up the Bogart years in a sentence or two.

           Grove, the Bogart presidency was the end of an era. Bogart laid the groundwork for much that came afterward, but I suggest in my book that he was primarily concerned with the past. It haunted him.

            Hence your title?

            Absolutely. Bogart himself looked back a good deal. He was the oldest man ever elected president, and at his age he knew he didn’t have unlimited time. His marriage to Betty [former First Lady Lauren Bacall] had come relatively late in his life, his first child was born when he was 49, and he had a sense of his own mortality. Not that he ever spoke openly about it, of course. He wasn’t the type. And he discouraged his friends and his staff too. That’s why so much of this stuff is new to the public.

             His own mortality . . . Was he depressed? Despondent?

             I wouldn’t say depressed, but certainly fatalistic. He had stopped drinking the morning after he accepted the Democratic nomination, but he was afraid his health was shot.

            You suggest that having to give up so many friends also affected him.

            It did. Bogie knew he had to project a more wholesome image than he had cultivated in Hollywood. To some extent again this was public window dressing. As I indicate in my book, he talked regularly to [Frank] Sinatra by phone, and he kept in touch with [Claude] Rains and [Peter] Lorre, but the days of boozy camaraderie he had enjoyed so much were over.

            You knew Bogart from Hollywood, didn’t you?

            I did, but just barely. I handled the publicity for his last picture before he entered politics, We’re No Angels. (Great flick, by the way.) I stayed on with Paramount after that, but when Bogie announced his candidacy he called me and asked if I’d come on board. I jumped at the chance.

            I know our readers are especially curious about Bogart’s surprising taste in movies. There have already been reports about this, so maybe it’s fair game. What can you tell us without giving away too much?

            I think you must be referring to the Casablanca story.

            As you know, it had been the practice of Bogie’s predecessors in the White House to relax at the end of the day, as the press of events allowed, of course, with a movie. Down in the screening room. The studios had been glad to oblige with prints of any feature the President expressed an interest in, and of course Bogie’s connections didn’t hurt either! [laughs] It was my job, one of my jobs, to handle the details.

            Strangely enough, Bogie didn’t enjoy his own movies. He was a perfectionist, and too often, I think, he dwelt on his mistakes. Anyway, he probably watched every movie made in the last thirty years except his own. But there was one in particular—and I know this is what you’re after—that he watched again and again. Usually late at night. Usually by himself. He had me buy a print, and then buy another one when the first one wore out. It was a 1942 production called Casablanca. Your readers may not be familiar with it, but it was a Ronald Reagan vehicle. Eminently forgettable. Betty refused to watch it after the first couple of times, and most of the staff begged off.

            So Bogart loved it and everybody else hated it?

            Grove, that’s the odd thing. I can’t say that Bogie liked it at all. He snorted at Reagan’s lines, and wasn’t much happier with Dennis Morgan’s performance. It was a typical Warner Bros. product . . . No, Bogie didn’t like it.

            And yet . . .

            And yet, he saw something in it. I don’t know if you’re familiar with Casablanca, but it’s about a nightclub owner in Morocco, Rick something, during the war, the Second World War. Ann Sheridan plays the love interest, and she and Reagan had this thing going back in Paris. If you haven’t seen it, try to find a copy. [laughs] Everybody will be wanting see it now, and I’m sure Ronnie’s kids will appreciate any extra royalties that might come their way. I think he ended up shilling for General Electric on TV.

            Anyway, Bogie couldn’t get enough of it. We used to joke about how he saw himself as Rick, saw himself as this weary, cynical character who nevertheless pulls the thing off. Very 1940’s, very American in fact, if you can overlook Reagan’s wooden delivery. It’s the attitude that got us through the war, I guess, and that allowed Bogie to go ahead with the Cuban settlement that the Republicans pilloried him for.

             In a lot of ways too it’s the attitude that got him through the [Ingrid] Bergman scandal and his final illness. He was a good President, but hell, he would have made a great Rick!

            Casablanca. I’m sure we’ll all be looking for it.

            Good luck, Grove. It’s been hard to find. But maybe that’s about to change.

            Good talking to you, Al.

            Likewise. Let’s do it again soon.

             Your Body Is a Beautiful Gift to Get Lost In

Rub the heels of your feet

and put on your best clothes.

No lover's breath.

This is your ideal partner—

skinned and freshly showered.

Fear is Good:

            It's Time to Scrub the Bathroom Tile or Find a Spiritual Advisor

The clarity of empty:

It's time to sharpen good intentions for your friend's ears.

Fake it, and experience a floating sadness,

a hardwiring.

Friend baker. Wife

baking. Mother baked.

It's the wind in your face.

It's the first step home.

It's the bottomless, dry,

connection to your bones.

 Soothing is Important:

            What Would It Be Like To Eat a Cherry So Slowly It Dissolves On Your Tongue?

Bruised? Wearied? We all have compulsions.

We all break our necks mistaking windows

for air. Devour the dark

recklessness of your addiction.

You need a container. A shadow comfort.

Your honey pot cannot be filled with ordinary

space and time-- find a luxury.

This is Actually Quite Negative:

Indicate this talk is nurturing.

Lock into my brutal banana

peeling spine, teeth,

and locked tongue.

Either X or Y will become anonymous.

Either you or I will become the critic.

I'm sorry.

I misjudged the amount of

fruitful anger crowding our cupboard.

An Unsettling Sidelong

vexed caring the lateness, having him delivered upon vellum yet its dripping. Intent below signature. Save this being a scenery, some speak. Tugged in the fisherman’s boat, a knot of wood out by a grave splendor. Fields crystalline at length. He bent toward their muster visiting for propriety, sank lower on alluvial not entirely concealed. And to gain, promises withheld. An honest man who is loosened by the betrothed, patient bounds torn from wasted time of searching little fingers, neglected had they gone. Those who stirred fastidious in relief of other ancestors could only watch, not minding the deepen plush of feathers garlanded row after row near their temples, scratching. Had they paraded iron doors, enough false feet would turn over clay vessels spent on center-tiles. Charred myrrh. Ambergris premature after dusk. He was not spared simulacrum. Draping clothes in scented hush, smoke warning of departure uncalled for. Refuse open air, they deigned, lest finding ruined vanity. Who among them listened once claws of their smoldering pile tipped another hand. Reticent would she come carrying her salvage across this trail. She grew in frame but a bit. Expanse asked so furtively from her then on.

Ornithology

since veiled supreme retained her waking hours fascinated. A whir famished for joining at overhead flock: arrowtip pointed at equator moons, great blood sundry stored in wanderlust, taste of heat on tonguelash released. They had been lacking these epiphanies. Granted regardlessly in them. More an occasion of late summer months. So she followed. Something earned him at least. By her eye their migrations settled for entrenching warmer airflow beneath. And from the fill of every reason left them hemming cornices in celebration, wreathed banquet tables in steady wind. Awaiting daybreak. She will be much longer through. The middling lands yield many caretakers, perhaps a few sloped fields yet to be rescued. Those equanime children.

Almost Provoked

by lambast heat, so goldleaf inside her shudders this din. Upon its curling scope kneels at balmy saltpeter. Base containment she hinges upon for furnace dwelling in neck, running fluid as falling from vertebrae. In secret cloak, a lamb underneath bleating her against. Pays for snowveils over the heartslab it cannot reach for effort. Further consideration upon flays her lace. It bades guiled remorse. Whether fastened to crux or interred towards highest polarity could its face bite with smattering eyeteeth. A threading of letters seraphed dissolve into her yawn’s handwriting. The scripting breadth declines contesting newborns ever their perpetual self.

Hand-Cloth’d Her Book

stayed firm of vows previously as across him taking. Now without cloth—again. Brash enters the unspoken, elsewhere too late for her seasons. The coil either lengthwise within lower spine or opposite appeals he taught. This was a fancy splayed one slain out on flatrock, throat opened to notice his tuning. Soon giblets melodic. They bore sordid bleats in greased bowls she placed underneath, and the run-off collected. Offal struck her nose—sacred places keeping her child buried when he was not looking. In bin rolled eyes chalky white. The unappreciative. A gasp took shuttered side, stitching in her flanks. But his puncture delineated both. She heard him. What substance would she become in the blade, if left to it. What sluice her body flowed into before endeavors the left ventricle withstands. In private counsel her guiding tract. Growth, fruition, entirety. The host may better proceed to bathe along fresher loam. There it will bubble light moss. Expiation as pressed scents of tunneling flesh lost. With back turned she would collect these against his evidence forthcoming.

Spine Seldom Notices

when grim toss serviced them. Affairs knuckles permeate less than complaints. Fourth column fifth column until endure this seated, her ears stopped with packing. Neither brusque nor plentiful. His willing bent broken on pasture hands. No different than with patience: the how many stumbling calves delivered however into dark cellar. Limbs moving themselves do please this whelp he escorts. Where seen to after by unbelief. And gathering the proper tenant is his vestibule indeed.

1.1

The contrast, clearing: an intervening cloud or homunculus:

                         bad mouthed

                         good lungs

as in the hammer coiling in the quiet between myth.

The pantry: a blunder. So with philosophy.

The crashing, the course. The rock

in each lobster tittering. There were discussions meant for raking:

the mouths understood teeth & instance. & the record of notes

they could banish. They could stone tomorrow’s zeroes from beneath the ice.

Tied out in iron, the remote river—it’s throat:

there was a jungle here; there was a picture;

this morning monster, this sheeted sky.

2.1

Sheets in the landing strap

ladder a basilisk for the duration

Beaks devastate windows

remaining like travelers

A mop of rustling skins, a polish

to cage them through

& a plane’s forgetful audience hovers locally

So I gown my dialectic dissolve—

        here’s the town flown bitter on a welt’s revolve

In the correspondence of assassination

In the simmer green floor that jettisons

unhinged, over air

only the rarely closeness dying

& the potential coppers oceaning significantly

compares to a vision that hills with you like weather

A stone propeller’s fall saves with it

The drowning plot considers flapping conjecture

plausible margins

a dove sentence

4.3

lovers without a bureau to touch on

how trains quarter, only to subtract multiplying photographs

how “affair” reassigned keys & split sleeping shoes

how then to confiscate brick whimpers

O revolution, bow-legged with sound, how to know

that slip dioramas would glistening

cowering to carpet, holding how we agency

or fucked, moving around pictures, found in lavatories

6.2

An autobiography to translate the ache between oceans.

My words shut like august in the strangeness.

Question how to name light, how we divide light and without.

Secrets separating a mouth on the fuse. Blinking that might break.

6.4

A therapy of fire by the roadside, and wind

blinded the anatomy of a possible alleyway–

such is the wanted comfort of surprise journeys.

Illuminated meaning and unblinking rivers join colorless,

welcome to collecting secrets. But secrets

break quickly, and not as extended villainy or the whispered fuse

but as streets shadow by numbers, seeming lightly and ignored.

No city of voice, no veranda over windy field. Everything tiny

will hold december. An envelope merely determines significance.

In a strangely forked horizon, all the aching firewood will pause.