Since you ask, most days I cannot remember.
I walk in my clothing, unmarked by that voyage.
Then the almost unnameable lust returns.

Even then I have nothing against life.
I know well the grass blades you mention,
the furniture you have placed under the sun.

But suicides have a special language.
Like carpenters they want to know which tools.
They never ask why build.

Twice I have so simply declared myself,
have possessed the enemy, eaten the enemy,
have taken on his craft, his magic.

In this way, heavy and thoughtful,
warmer than oil or water,
I have rested, drooling at the mouth-hole.

I did not think of my body at needle point.
Even the cornea and the leftover urine were gone.
Suicides have already betrayed the body.

Still-born, they don’t always die,
but dazzled, they can’t forget a drug so sweet
that even children would look on and smile.

To thrust all that life under your tongue!–
that, all by itself, becomes a passion.
Death’s a sad Bone; bruised, you’d say,

and yet she waits for me, year after year,
to so delicately undo an old wound,
to empty my breath from its bad prison.

Balanced there, suicides sometimes meet,
raging at the fruit, a pumped-up moon,
leaving the bread they mistook for a kiss,

leaving the page of the book carelessly open,
something unsaid, the phone off the hook
and the love, whatever it was, an infection.

ocean expands
waves end
horizon meets calm
seeping into every pore
gulping water with intense thirst
gasping
darkness swallows my surroundings
sinking
awash with emptiness
clarity
calm
relief
nothingness

Read this book years ago and adored it. Just came across this quote again. Fantastic.

from A Girl Becomes a Comma Like That by Lisa Glatt

You’re lucky if a Brit kisses you after he fucks you–before he fucks you, for that matter. You’re lucky if he pats you on the back the morning after, that’s how removed and distant they are.

from movie Sid and Nancy:

Johnny: You’re not getting anything.
Nancy: What?
Johnny: Fucking Americans. That’s all you ever think about– sex. Non of us fuck, see. Sex is ugly.

Buy:

A Girl Becomes a Comma Like That: A Novel

Sid & Nancy

Easter is the darkest black with a white star on her pretty face.
She knows what she wants and big horses treat her with grace.

Welsh Mountain is her breed.
Why the name Easter? She happened to be born on the holiday on April 22, 1973.

Amy took Easter swimming, on long trail rides and to shows.
She also brushed her as kittens, a-top Easter, curled up and dosed.

This Welsh mountain pony is rugged, sometimes stubborn, more often sweet.
She doesn’t mind being out in rain, snow and sleet.

Easter moved to a new barn, little bantam chickens would roost on her back.
The pony was round and comfortable and never gave the chickens any flack.

These days she lies out in the sun because she needs a nap when she gets tired.
She’s now 37-years-old and retired.

Beneath Easter’s barn live a few foxes with dark cinnamon colored fur and bushy tails.
Many days you can see the foxes running alongside the rails.

In the field, also called a paddock, the foxes and the pony sometimes stay close to each other.
Although a bit afraid of the pony, the foxes and Easter still respect one another.

— Amy Steele

Jonathan Tropper’s writing completely resonates with me as a fellow Gen-Xer. All his novels are cerebral, intricate and amusing.

This Is Where I Leave You captivates from beginning to end.

This Is Where I Leave You
SUMMER 2010 BOOK TOUR DATES.

Wednesday, July 7, 2010, 7:00 pm
Borders
10720 Preston Road
DALLAS, TX

Thursday, July 8, 2010, 7:00 pm
Borders
2817 North Clark Street
CHICAGO, IL

Tuesday, July 13, 2010, 7:00 pm
Borders
1499 Post Road
FAIRFIELD, CT

Wednesday, July 14, 2010, 7:00 pm
Borders
680 White Plains Road
SCARSDALE, NY

Thursday, July 15, 2010, 7:00 pm
Borders
(With Allison Winn Scotch)
10 Columbus Circle
NEW YORK, NY

Tuesday, July 27, 2010, 7:00 pm
Huntington Book Revue
313 New York Avenue
HUNTINGTON, NY

Wednesday, July 28, 2010, 8:00 pm
Elliot Bay Books
1521 Tenth Avenue
SEATTLE, WA

Thursday, July 29, 2010, 7:00 pm
Book Soup
8818 West Sunset Blvd
LOS ANGELES, CA

Tuesday, August 3, 2010, 7:00 pm
Newtonville Books
296 Walnut Street
NEWTONVILLE, MA

Wednesday, August 4, 2010, 7:00 pm
92Y Tribeca
(panel with Peter Hedges)
200 Hudson Street
NEW YORK, NY

My mouth blooms like a cut.
I’ve been wronged all year, tedious
nights, nothing but rough elbows in them
and delicate boxes of Kleenex calling crybaby
crybaby , you fool !

Before today my body was useless.
Now it’s tearing at its square corners.
It’s tearing old Mary’s garments off, knot by knot
and see — Now it’s shot full of these electric bolts.
Zing! A resurrection!

Once it was a boat, quite wooden
and with no business, no salt water under it
and in need of some paint. It was no more
than a group of boards. But you hoisted her, rigged her.
She’s been elected.

My nerves are turned on. I hear them like
musical instruments. Where there was silence
the drums, the strings are incurably playing. You did this.
Pure genius at work. Darling, the composer has stepped
into fire.