sam sax

bury it


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      you can’t drink glass

      without becoming

      something else

      sure, everyone has heartache

      but mine lives

      in my body

      it moves as i move

      it stares back at me

      BUENA VISTA PARK 2AM

      these men carry

      famine in them

      eyes

      knives

      the lamps throw their light

      against branches

      the branches rake their shadows

      across a man’s naked back

      his back flat as a table

      the table set for me

      i did not come here hungry

      & yet

      i eat.

      PENTIMENTO

      the mass-produced

      painting of a field

      in winter hanging

      above the bed

      in this west oakland

      motel room starts moving

      on its own inside

      the faux gold frame.

      it begins as always

      with whiteness swallowing

      the rest of the painting

      in its dumb bloodslit

      hunger. then as always

      a pulse of the backlit

      blue veins rising up

      like abrasions on a pale

      boy’s back. followed

      by the inevitable red

      riven out the snow bank

      taking the shape

      of a scythe or sieve

      or finally a boy or the shape

      of a boy growing antlers

      or the shape of antlers

      wherever his hands

      are meant to be now.

      but they’re impossible

      to see in all the movement.

      impossible to move

      his hands & you have

      to wonder how a boy

      or the shape of a boy

      wound up here

      in this unstable field.

      if only i knew the history

      of art i could give you

      more than the color

      of the thing. i could tell

      exactly what school

      this painting’s in. i could

      use the painter’s biography

      to make sense of it

      his fucked head & terrible

      terrible life. i could use

      expensive words to make

      these bizarre gestures

      tenable. i wonder

      if every one of these

      reprints is moving

      in the same fashion?

      or is it just this one

      staring upside down

      at a boy on his back

      on a filthy white blanket

      while the shape

      of a strange man moves

      in unspeakable ways

      over my body.

      STANDARDS

      and again the test comes back negative for waterborne parasites

      for gonorrhea of the throat and of elsewhere for white blood cells in the stool

      this isn’t always true sometimes it’s a phone call from your lover

      sometimes it’s your computer blinking on with news of what’s wrong

      with your body this time

      simple really how he says the name of a disease

      and suddenly you’re on your back staring out the window onto a highway

      suddenly a woman enters the room to wrap a black cuff around your arm

      and squeeze until you’re no longer sick

      to slip a device under your tongue check if your sweat’s accompanied

      by the heat it demanded

      and aren’t we all of elsewhere sometimes the nowhere places you make yourself

      inside the hallowed chambers of the hospital and inside the man’s unsure voice

      when he calls and is too scared to name the precise strain of letters

      you might share now what parasite might feed on the topsoil of your groin

      what laugh track what tabernacle unlatched to let all that god in

      what bacteria spreading its legs in your throat as you speak

      when the illness is terminal you drink an eighth of paint thinner

      while all the color drains from your face

      all those little rocks in your gut turned to buses all those buses full of strange men

      each one degree apart all going somewhere and gone now

      funny how a word can do that garage the body

      what if instead he’d simply called to say epithalamium or new car or sorry

      ESSAY ON CRYING IN PUBLIC

      i’m bent over / the sidewalk weeping / outside the public theatre / you stand above me / horse built from a father’s beer cans / you still have that other man’s mouth on you / i can taste it / with the grunt of my hands / it’s my fault / always is / i say do what you will / + your will is done / so what i was born drunk + mean with my teeth knocked out / so what my first noise was crying + i’ve been going-strong ever since / that other man has a name / i hate that / he has a mouth + fixed-gear bike + hiv / + you sat on his couch waiting for him / to say anything / that you’re pretty / or nice / or have nice sneakers / then you leapt in his body + lived there a while / maybe brushed your teeth ate a spoiled piece of fruit / then came back to me / with your house keys out / the ones i’d cut for you / said you couldn’t stop / thinking of me / how he tasted too sweet / cut flowers in chemical powder / candy souring in heat / how glad you are to live / here / where everything feels safe / basic real-estate / my house + bed / a thin sheet of latex / my chest a coffer to store your futures in / how bad does the news have to be before you get to shoot the messenger / how can we bury the hatchet / when it always ends up in my back / when you tell me / he emptied you / like an animal / hide / i’m fine / until i’m inconsolable / in public + you’re offering vacant comfort / how bad he was in his body / how much it hurt / you /