How a Resurrection Really Feels1 (a song for girls in their
20s)2
Tundra to the north and
west
freshwater sea to the east
the big/second city below
And of all the bad seeds
who never found a way
out
of town
the one we loved the best
had been stranded at that
party
for
years
The Upper Midwest
dulls the nerves
with the dull hums of devotion
glacier-scooped and wooded
and too knowable
for a big fish
with a systems-analysis
kind of mind
The free drinks
keep you
at the corner bar
the easy hookups
keep you in town
The Upper Midwest
soaked
in the stale blood of
Catholics
which smells like
the stale beer
of all the college bars you
went to
in high school
’cause your friend worked
there
and gave you the IDs
people left behind
How many girls were Jill
Van Groll?
I was, and Jenny, and Emily,
and whoever
was blonde mutt enough
to pass
There is nothing to do but
drink
but there are lots of
kinds of drinking
there is nothing to do but
drugs
but there are plenty of
drugs
And of all those guys
those guys with the baggy
jeans
and
black t-shirts
with the wallet chains
and
buzz cuts
of all those guys I
couldn’t tell you
for
sure
who’s dead and who’s alive
walk on back
walk on back
Dragged to Sunday Mass
I took the chalice from my
mother
Eucharistic Minister
grinned and winked as I
sipped
before heading back to the
pew
“Becca has a taste for wine”
There is nothing to do but
sip
but some drinks are
classier
than
others
some drinks are
Catholicker
than
others
he’s been disappeared for years
And when they let him out
of prison
this
Christmas
and he drove around town
in
John’s old truck
we missed them all so bad
all
those boys
and his grin was the grin
of a kid
or of ass-flat defeat
or of someone who’d felt
the
divine softening of blows
We weren’t allowed
to
sit and smoke in bars once
And we’re not allowed
to
sit and smoke in bars now
But there was a time
we sat in bar after bar
using one cigarette to
light the next
And those were our
twenties
The friends he met in the
bathroom
the
bullet that grazed him
the lakeview condo he
rented
in the complex
where all the ballers
lived
the
topless bar that paid
her tuition
the
suitcases full of packages
Hustlers
in the land
of
no opportunity
If you can’t make it here
you could take it as a
sign
it’s time to get out
walk on back
walk on back
Maybe
there is no such thing
as the third coast
After all
the lake freezes over
and
they swing the incensers
over the ice
and
there’s a lot to confess
because there are so few
ways
to be good
so we got ourselves all gone again
a bar and a steeple
on every corner
the
bells ring out
and the changeover
Your twenties: the time when you are allowed to smoke in bars! some people will never get to have twenties.
ReplyDeleteI think your next location-based book maybe should be called _a bar and a steeple on every corner_.
I love this poem! Super duper chills. All those guys (!!!!) And yeah how sad for all those people who will never have their bar-smoking twenties! They can go to this one bar in SF & have them I guess.
ReplyDelete