Popular Longing. Natalie Shapero

the arid access road,

      the only remembrance that matters.

      Don’t make a speech.

      For years I would wonder whether

      the man who attacked me—

      in his memory, did the event of it

      persist as a dull sort of flash? Then

      he died and became himself

      just a flash in the mind of the world.

      Now I wonder—is he anywhere?

      I don’t believe in Hell and also I don’t

      believe in nothing, so that leaves only

      Heaven. I have a couple

      questions. It is my understanding

      that the weather in Heaven

      has only a single setting,

      which is PLEASANT. I haven’t

      spent real time in California, but friends

      of mine who’ve moved there

      say it’s challenging, absent the changing

      of the seasons, to remember when things

      took place. With reference to always

      the lodgepole pine and the low-bent

      needlegrass, you get confused.

      Dates and sequences, even the people

      involved. You can almost imagine

      the whole thing was somebody else.

       A Space to Train and Exit

      Maybe California’s just plain easier,

      with the commonness

      of outbuildings. Raw-looking cedar or sheet

      metal walls and a runnel

      of sun getting in through the roof seams.

      Position the heavy bag, tighten the eyebolt,

      twenty-five right hooks. Or pull up

      a chair and compose your suicide note.

      A space to train and exit.

      The purpose of having a body at all

      is to practice, to practice

      the keeping alive of domestic

      animals and plants. You dispense to yourself

      some minerals and water. You expose

      yourself to the sun and it helps

      you remember to do the same for those

      in your charge. If you could equip

      them with all they require, or make them

      require nothing, you wouldn’t

      need your body at all.

       Magpie

      Unusual rain of late, and a new weed

      that resembles concertina wire

      is threading itself through the dirt.

      Seeing it makes me think of never seeing it again,

      how I will miss this upstart greenness

      after I lose it all and am thrown

      from this home, which will be soon.

      It’ll be someone else living here then, hiding

      an emergency key in a bucket,

      up late snaking the bath drain or early

      doing sit-ups on the painted floor.

      It’ll be someone else walking a mile and a half

      to the store called Magpie, buying

      a gift for whichever friend’s baby, rattle

      or small shirt with a transit map.

      The name is meant to conjure up a gorgeous, inky

      creature culling treasures to bring

      back, but if you really get close

      to a magpie’s nest, you see it’s all trash.

       Tea

      I can’t get away from it.

      Felted-up reenactors shoving a great fake crate of it

      into the Harbor and jeering.

      After the tour group leaves, they fish it

      back out and towel it off,

      unbutton their waistcoats to smoke.

      At the nearby counter-service place, there are two

      jars next to the register, and dropping bills

      into one or the other is how

      we affirm our commitments—why should we ever

      pay decently, unless it occurs

      in this fever of rivalry that passes for fun?

      What are our choices and might I suggest

      LESS IS MORE against MORE IS MORE?

      Or IT COULD HAPPEN ANYTIME against IT HAPPENS

      ALL THE TIME? Or how about THIS VIOLENCE

      FOREVER UNDOES A PERSON

      against THAT CONTENTION CAN ONLY

      BE ROOTED IN THE RETROGRADE

      VIEW THAT A WOMAN IS EITHER INTACT OR SHE’S

      NOT? I always thought I’d made

      peace with THIS PLANET, and yet here I am

      shoving all my cash in the jar

      marked ANYPLACE ELSE. There isn’t enough

      money in the world.