<p class="epil">—question (with typo) in a mass email’s subject line</p>
<div class="line">I wait for lunchtime at my desk, spinning</div>
<div class="line">like a boy in a barber’s chair. Come noon, a walk</div>
<div class="line">past pretty girls in flowered clothing, faces blooming</div>
<div class="line">from sunlight’s brownish blush. I sit awhile,</div>
<div class="line">lotus-like beneath a shadowy willow, breathe smells</div>
<div class="line">of cut grass, melting chocolate.</div>
<div class="line">I feed squirrels, sing love songs to pigeons,</div>
<div class="line">watching as they bob their heads in rhythm.</div>
<div class="line">Then it’s back to the office for coffee</div>
<div class="line">tasting like gasoline, maybe a doughnut on the sly.</div>
<div class="line">If my boss pops over, checking my progress,</div>
<div class="line">I greet him with a good-natured pat on the back</div>
<div class="line">to wipe the sticky glaze from my fingertips. After,</div>
<div class="line">it’s time for all the important tasks: I shuffle</div>
<div class="line">blank pages, transfer calls to disconnected numbers.</div>
<div class="line">I wink at my window-reflection. I liaise. Mostly,</div>
<div class="line">I deal with people come looking for <em>me</em>.</div>
<div class="line">I give directions, always surprised if they reappear,</div>
<div class="line">winded &amp; flushed, to ask me where I am.</div>


My Father

Anniversary

What Is Your Idle Job?

<div class="body-text">A guy from DNR tracked the neighborhood bear, a yearling who’s been causing quite a stir on Facebook &amp; in rubbish bins along Gordon Drive. Scraps, all it wanted, wandering in excessive Summer heat. Families can’t live with a bear on the street making a mess, marking its territory by scatterings of meat-scented plastic &amp; a few violent markings on the trees. At first, the DNR rep swore the bear would be put down, its black/brown coat blooming lips &amp; roses. But everyone has a camera. Photos posted in the Facebook group once reserved for neighborly complaints about fireworks or people speeding were like those of someone’s happy child at play in a brutal world. So, the bear will be relocated to a wildlife preserve. Plenty of space. Lots of caves &amp; streams. There’s enough emptiness in West Virginia for any reclusive animal—a myth, a memory—escaping the limelight in which it never wanted to be like a murderer’s wife.</div><figure class="wp-block-audio"><audio controls src="https://admin.rattle.com/audio/BoggessGoodbye.mp3"></audio></figure>

Klimt at the Musee Maillol

The Neighbor

Goodbye for Now

<div class="line">I should be friends with my ex-wife,</div>
<div class="line">extend handshake &amp; chivalrous salute,</div>
<div class="line">as if we might hang out</div>
<div class="line">somewhere between servers &amp;</div>
<div class="line">play Gin Rummy, digital checkers,</div>
<div class="line">as if not-enemies isn’t enough;</div>
<div class="line">we have to like each other, &amp;</div>
<div class="line">our posts. Her face appears,</div>
<div class="line">sadly smiling, on my screen</div>
<div class="line">like a phantom, like any</div>
<div class="line">of one hundred thousand memories,</div>
<div class="line">ambiguous. +Add Friend,</div>
<div class="line">the social network strong-arms me,</div>
<div class="line">demanding I send a new request</div>
<div class="line">as though she wouldn’t request in turn</div>
<div class="line">twenty years of her life back, &amp;</div>
<div class="line">I wouldn’t find it too disturbing</div>
<div class="line">to read about her relationship status,</div>
<div class="line">thumb through pictures of her travels</div>
<div class="line">to beaches, zoos, concerts, cathedrals,</div>
<div class="line">with whomever might prove</div>
<div class="line">martyr enough for love.</div>
<div class="line">I’m much too busy regretting,</div>
<div class="line">also trying to forget, &amp; dancing</div>
<div class="line">in a dark &amp; empty room,</div>
<div class="line">while wondering how I should</div>
<div class="line">pitch Facebook on an +Add</div>
<div class="line">Not-Enemy button for those</div>
<div class="line">we’d rather not know, except we do.</div><figure class="wp-block-audio"><audio controls src="https://admin.rattle.com/audio/BoggessFacebook.mp3"></audio></figure>

Smudge

How to Unpack a Bomb Vest

Facebook Keeps Telling Me

<div class="line">we sit there straining &amp; stiff</div>
<div class="line">in straight-backed chairs</div>
<div> </div>
<div class="line">half a dozen of us</div>
<div class="line">following Dorothy’s naïve plunge</div>
<div> </div>
<div class="line">into trouble &amp; Technicolor</div>
<div class="line">a fantasy less enchanting</div>
<div> </div>
<div class="line">than in the innocence of our youth</div>
<div class="line">what is Dot but a body dressed in innocence?</div>
<div> </div>
<div class="line">her Betty Boop <i>oh-mys</i></div>
<div class="line">her dance-stepping along the avenues</div>
<div> </div>
<div class="line">like a skipped stone or drop of paint</div>
<div class="line">from a bucket left on a booming speaker &amp;</div>
<div> </div>
<div class="line">how she makes friends with strangers</div>
<div class="line">what her mama warned her about</div>
<div> </div>
<div class="line">more likely to encounter one of us</div>
<div class="line">cowardly heartless &amp; out of our minds</div>
<div> </div>
<div class="line">we forgive her this slip-up</div>
<div class="line">having come with her so far</div>
<div> </div>
<div class="line">we go on following at a safe distance</div>
<div class="line">like guardian angels with bloody swords &amp;</div>
<div> </div>
<div class="line">when we arrive at the Emerald City</div>
<div class="line">we sneak thief-like through the gates</div>
<div> </div>
<div class="line">wanting to see her achieve her goal</div>
<div class="line">which is the same as ours</div><figure class="wp-block-audio"><audio controls src="https://admin.rattle.com/audio/BoggessOz.mp3"></audio></figure>

Rehab

Mignon

Watching the Wizard of Oz in Prison

<div class="line">Dreams that belonged to each of us:</div>
<div class="line">unbroken spirit versus unbreakable walls.</div>
<div class="line">I remember mine as vividly as leg irons:</div>
<div class="line">sniffing pollen from flowers at a highway’s edge,</div>
<div class="line">hiding from marshals under a mound</div>
<div class="line">of brittle leaves in the garden,</div>
<div class="line">eating burgers in a dead café. So,</div>
<div class="line">when I heard those two guys made it out</div>
<div class="line">from Clinton Correctional in New York</div>
<div class="line">through a hole in the wall,</div>
<div class="line">along pipes &amp; hidden passageways,</div>
<div class="line">out a manhole into the movie-like rain,</div>
<div class="line">a part of me rejoiced—not the part</div>
<div class="line">that knows human decency,</div>
<div class="line">not the part that wants to be safe</div>
<div class="line">in its discreet new life; no,</div>
<div class="line">that other part that wishes itself bravado,</div>
<div class="line">the visionary weighted down from years of longing.</div>
<div class="line">How it must feel for them to anticipate</div>
<div class="line">a soft mattress, softer arms embracing,</div>
<div class="line">first sniff at sizzle-scents of steak; &amp;</div>
<div class="line">how confusing to learn the world has changed</div>
<div class="line">without them (whatever world they dreamt</div>
<div class="line">of escaping to). It’s there I leave them</div>
<div class="line">as though putting down a paperback thriller,</div>
<div class="line">not wanting to read what happens next</div>
<div class="line">when truth does violence to their fantasies,</div>
<div class="line">as it will, &amp; the gray, fermented fruits</div>
<div class="line">of what was believed to be freedom</div>
<div class="line">squeeze sad wine into a glass</div>
<div class="line">from which these men already drank before.</div><figure class="wp-block-audio"><audio controls src="https://admin.rattle.com/audio/BoggessEnvy.mp3"></audio></figure>

Basho’s Hut: A Haibun

Poets Respond

Painting Music

Escape Envy

<div class="line">I come to your door with a mango smoothie</div>
<div class="line">because you are sick your world inverse</div>
<div> </div>
<div class="line">like that <i>Star Trek</i> episode</div>
<div class="line">where bad Kirk’s goatee reflects the Jolly Roger</div>
<div> </div>
<div class="line">leaning in I watch you sip sunny nectar</div>
<div class="line">exhale only shadow</div>
<div> </div>
<div class="line">I know I cannot heal you</div>
<div class="line">love never a healing word</div>
<div> </div>
<div class="line">as I know from your trailing mascara</div>
<div class="line">you lack faith to keep this down for long</div>
<div> </div>
<div class="line">at least I have offered a favorable flavor</div>
<div class="line">for the coming up again</div>
<div> </div>
<div class="line">like a bottle of sauce</div>
<div class="line">to dress the lesser meat</div><figure class="wp-block-audio"><audio controls src="https://admin.rattle.com/audio/BoggessMango.mp3"></audio></figure>

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September 3, 2014Mango SmoothieAce Boggess

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September 3, 2014Mango SmoothieAce Boggess

Related

What Is Your Idle Job? by Ace Boggess

Goodbye for Now by Ace Boggess

Facebook Keeps Telling Me by Ace Boggess

Watching the Wizard of Oz in Prison by Ace Boggess