M A R C H 1 9 9 6 ![]() Two Poemsby Rodney JonesFIRST COCA-COLA | |||||||||||||
Hear Rodney Jones read this poem (in RealAudio). (For help, see a note about the audio.)
Also by Rodney Jones: |
Maybe a sin, indecent for sure--dope, The storekeeper called it. Everyone agreed That Manuel Lawrence, who drank Through the side of his mouth, squinting And chortling with pleasure, was hooked; Furthermore, Aunt Brenda, Who was so religious that she made Her daughters bathe with their panties on, Had dubbed it "toy likker, fool thing," And so might I be. Holding the bottle Out to the light, watching it bristle. Watching the slow spume of bubbles Die, I asked myself, could it be alive?
When they electrocuted Edwin Dockery,
There it was. If the Hard-Shell
BEAUTIFUL CHILD | ||||||||||||
Hear Rodney Jones read this poem (in RealAudio). (For help, see a note about the audio.)
Go to:
|
Because I looked out as I was looked upon (Blue-eyed under the golden corm of ringlets That my mother could not bring herself To have the barber shear from my head) I began to see, as adults approached me, That hunger a young woman must feel When a lover seizes one breast too long On the ideal nipple-balm of the tongue. When they lifted me and launched me Ceilingward, I seemed to hang there years, A satellite in the orbit of their affections, Spinning near the rainspot continents And the light globe freckled with flies. I could smell the week-old syrupy sweat And the kerosene of many colognes, Could see the veined eyes and the teeth Dotted with shreds of lettuce and meat. When I touched down, one of them Would hold me to the torch of a beard And goose my underarms until I screamed. Another would rescue me, but leave On my cheek the heart-mark of her kiss. So I began, at three, to push them away. There was no ceremony and few words, But like a woman who has let a man go too far And, in one night's moodiness, steps Out of a parked car and walks home alone, I came suddenly to my life, and they Did not begrudge me, but turned back To the things they had done before-- The squeaking bed, the voices late at night. Mornings I'd crawl beneath the house, Dreaming how poignantly tragic my death Would seem, but, having thought about it, I happily took myself into the darkness Of the underground, where I was king.
Copyright © 1996 by The Atlantic Monthly Company. All rights reserved. The Atlantic Monthly; March 1996; Two Poems; Volume 277, No. 3; page 107. |
||||||||||||
|