(always unmade) bed
and went out back
what a gross hole
a total mess
of
of
of
rubbish litter trash scraps
and God knows what all
but I pretended
a twenty-foot container
was standing empty over there
and tugged on gloves
and started hauling
crap to where it wasn’t
the coffee table first
which when I lifted
by its legs
like a dead goat
a herd of chipmunks
living under it
scattered away
clocks radios bent pipes
two sinks with busted faucets
chairs and rags
and lamps and random
lumber shingles window frames
to have some fun
I rolled five bald tires across the yard
like that hoop game
and raced two tires at once
that flopped over when
they hit the pile
pretty soon I had a mound
of trash
like a bonfire ready to burn
and saw patches of bare ground
I never had
I kept on it
wrenching dragging heaving tossing
all the reject wasted rubbish
I could move
until it was too dark
and I was tripping over stuff
and anyway my arms and back
throbbed from the strain
and said
No more.
so I stopped for the night
and leaning on
the kitchen door
to breathe and look around
I found that after
three and a half hours
phase one
of doing
the impossible
was done
well
(I thought)
it’s a start
it was a start
all right
I didn’t know it then
but just after
I started cleaning
up the mess
but just before
the next day passed
the real mess
had begun
I Never Take
the bus
I’d rather crawl
on naked knees
across a field of dented beer cans
or swim a lake of pus
Jimmy cared
as much as flies
about what I did
and where I was
so no
no bus
ever
which was why
the next day
as I waited
and wandered
like I sometimes do
until the bells were done
and started down
the empty halls
toward the front
I saw a thing happen
The Art Room Door
was wide open
when I passed
and there was sudden noise
an angry voice
growling and spitting
in there
looking in I saw
two girls and a woman
not a teacher
the woman was leaning over
a skinny girl
with curly brown hair
while the other girl
stood shaking at a table
in the corner
her hands
on her face
her face pale
as paper
Ever! Ever! Ever!
was the only word
I heard clearly
the woman said it
through her teeth
then slapped
slapped
slapped
the skinny girl on her face
like she would slap a man
it was the opposite
of a sweaty schoolyard fight
this was cold and sharp as icicles
that cold froze up my chest
while the woman spun
past me
her shoes clacking fast
and angry down the hall
I shrank to nothing
watching
the skinny girl go
shaking shaking
to the other one
and hug her
kiss her wet face
and her lips
oh okay
but the other one
pried herself loose
twisting her shoulders back
and brushed by me
down the hall
the other way
uh . . .
I started to say but
shut straight up when
the skinny girl
wheeled around to me
What are you staring at?
nothing
So?
Help me.
help you?
do what?
Take them! Hang them up!
The show’s next week!
this skinny girl
had dark short hair
in a mess of curls
a frayed T-shirt
almost off one shoulder
and faded jeans
and a sort of face
hard not to look at
and her cheek raw red
are you okay?
but she only looked away
scooping up a pile of big paper
art paper
pictures
in her arms
from the corner table
Get the rest. Come on.
get the rest come on
I wanted to ask
what that was all about
the shouting and the slapping
(I got the kissing part)
but already she was
somewhere else in her mind
I Started Taping Art
up on the wall
with her
in the hall
outside the art room
Not there. There. No. There.
when Mr. Taymore
the art teacher
rumpled down the hall
and came to look
bending here and there
to study close
then standing back
to see it whole
Good. Good. Rachel, are you
Supervising your friend?
she (Rachel)
looked at him
then at me
Yeah. But I’ve never seen him.
I don’t know who he is.
I . . . I . . .
but what came out
was just a whisper
so the teacher
stood back again and frowned
Well, it’s looking good. Keep going.
he went away
she gave me a grin
of teeth with no smile in it
and I kept on taping
I had joined a thing
I guess
but don’t remember
really choosing to
After a While
still in a whisper voice
I asked
are these good
the pictures?
good art?
I mean
I don’t know
she stopped and looked
at me as if duh
then
cupped
her hand on her mouth
and heaved a pretend puke
into her palm
I knew that move
and hated it
felt stupid and went cold
with sweat completely
through my shirt
but snorted an almost laugh
at it anyway
then she unzipped this
big black flat case
and took out a board
with a sheet of tissue paper
on a drawing underneath
she peeled the tape
off the tissue corners
she did it slow
This, if you want to know,
Is good. This is mine.
and on the paper was
a bowl of fruit
lit by a candle on
the old table
in the corner
of the art room
from gray chalk on creamy paper
she had made
two ripe apples
(one with a thumbprint
of a bruise)
three pears two bananas
a bunch of grapes
that had been rinsed
and heaped in the bowl
which looked (the bowl)
light blue but
like every other thing
was only gray
and a peach
a single peach sat on the table
next to the bowl
looking yellow
red
and in between
the colors fiery
like it was perfectly
ripe
I knew the lines that made
every one of those fruits
were flat
as flat as the sheet
the lines were on
but all the fruit was
wet under the candlelight
as if it had been rinsed
just now
and just now
being served
to us
and real
enough to eat
but most of all what
sat there on the table
that peach drawn
with gray chalk
and only chalk
punched me in the chest
That Peach
was sitting there
on the surface of the table
except not sitting
it was touching lightly
on the wood
and the seam
between each half
was just a little blurred
and looking
like the peach might roll
right off the paper
I Hate to Talk
hate hate hate
to talk
dumb words
but standing there
in front of that light blue
bowl of wet fruit
pinned flat to the wall
and the blurring
fiery peach
I almost reached to catch
the thing
before it rolled
off the table
to the floor and at my feet
and found my tongue
and the breath from my lungs
pushing into sound
hey
I don’t get how
you can do that
how you can see that way
the shapes
and more than shapes
the
the
weight things have
with just lines
flat lines and circles and edges
and make them seem
to move
how do you see
that way?
which is more words
than I have said
since second grade
so I stopped and thought she
might take over now
and maybe say
Wow, Bobby, thanks!
but when
she turned to me
rubbing her cheek wet open raw
like her skin was turned inside out
she shook and
sank down the wall to the floor
that lady
I started to say but
didn’t know where to go with that plus
I felt as visible as
I don’t know
a giant turd
on a clean white rug
but my mouth went on
that lady is
your
mother?
she pulled up her shirt
to wipe her face her cheeks
I hate her.
She’s such a—
and used a
