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Lord,
on 8th Street
between 6th Avenue and Broadway
there are enough shoe stores
with enough shoes
to make me wonder
why there are shoeless people
on the earth.
Lord,
You have to fire the Angel
in charge of distribution.
--Jack Agüeros
via Martin Espada, via C. Dale Young
My poor girl broke her wrist on a class trip today. Stumbled over a tree root hiking, put her hands out to break the fall, and ended up with this (the ER sends you home with X-rays on CD nowadays).
I'm a little peeved that I didn't get wind of it until 4.5 hours later. Since she didn't cry, and assured them she was okay to go on, they gave her a sling and let her finish the mountain hike. Lucky she didn't fall again, or it might have been much worse. I'm really peeved that they didn't even have an ice pack to give her. Not that she complained. In her words, "I was having too much fun." Fun that included hopping slippery rocks across a creek with a broken wrist. Oy! Though she was in such good spirits when I picked her up, and there was so little swelling, that even I had to ask the nurse whether or not she should see a doctor--and we only agreed on it out of an abundance of caution. Fortunately, the bone didn't shift, so all she needs is a cast, which should be off by mid-late June.
FRAGMENT 31
Faint I Mock Enough, is as THEY I sin(n/g)ing—
Even over hot is {In}sane this Toying.
Done is I with Pleasure: Adieu, Phony!is
That is, AWAY go!is
Kind of Glacier in here, the Owing to Ma('am)(an)—is
Cardigan & Stealth—this this deft Erasing.is
O Scar IS—I do broach it—O me Phony,is
Sudden [&] Achy.is
All the Cameramen, all the Glossy slept on—is
Nautic Chrome for upending dramakinder's Eyes.is
O but This we Do & More a'Home peer,is
(by) Sea or by Talkie:is
Cock the mirror's catchingness! Cheat I (TRAUMAis
PASSION, GREED) if Clorox® the Terra? Poias,is
We who naked, oily & “Going twice” &is
Feigning the Autism—is
All up in die Tollhäuser play Piñatas.
--------------------------
--------------------------
He seems to me equal to gods that man
whoever he is who opposite you
sits and listens close
to your sweet speaking
and lovely laughing--oh it
puts the heart in my chest on wings
for when I look at you, even a moment, no speaking
is left in me
no: tongue breaks and thin
fire is racing under skin
and in eyes no sight and drumming
fills ears
and cold sweat holds me and shaking
grips me all, greener than grass
I am and dead--or almost
I seem to me.
But all is to be dared, because even a person of poverty...
(translated by Anne Carson)
Had things not gone nuclear, today would have been The Big Day. In one universe: laughter, eating, dancing, security. In this one: worry, fatigue, a tuna sandwich. It's not that I particularly wish for Door #1, but I could sure use a hard shot of joy right now. I hope someone at least takes the accoutrement off my hands.
Pan tolmaton, says Sappho. I'd like to ask her what one does coming out the other side.
As in, I'm unemployed again. Five minutes after I left the office today, the agency called to say that in less than two weeks, I'd finished the 6-week project for which I'd been hired. Therefore, Company X will no longer require my services. For a single mom living paycheck-to-paycheck this is really bad news. I don't know what the hell I'm going to do for the next three weeks, but I'm exhausted just thinking about it. If anyone knows anyone in the Greater Boston area who needs help with anything at all, put in a good word for me, will you? Somehow, I need to feed myself and the girl, keep my Rxs filled, register and insure my car in my own name, and come up with the cash to get myself and my belongings down to New Jersey in a little over 21 days. At this point, people usually suggest credit cards or borrowing from family. Unfortunately, I don't have credit cards, and my mom needs me to pay her bus fare up here to help me move. So really, work is the only option. I do have something lined up post-move (have already started), but I was really relying on this temp gig to get me there.
In other news, I don't always get to literary type things in a timely fashion, but sometimes I do eventually go back. Example: Richard Siken's Poetry Foundation dispatches, which I happened upon today:
Yeah.
No time for blogging lately. Things are looking up in GingerLand, but that means I've been busy with lots of unbloggable stuff. I'm deeply looking forward to the time when I can get back to reading, writing, and talking about poetry. I guess missing it so much is a decent indicator that I'm on the right track. About the only thing I still have energy for at the end of a long day is chatting with far-flung friends. If you're on google chat and want to say hello, please do! My gmail address is right over there under my name---------------------->
Round up, holler girlI wanted to be down with this article--and I was until the sharp U-turn at the end where "fat women" once again become a distinct class of people about whom one can generalize. I'm willing to give Nimoy the benefit of the doubt here. He may have been responding to a question about whether or not people would think he had a fat fetish, and who knows what the reporter paraphrased as "he doesn't necessarily find them sexually attractive." But boo! to both the writer and the Times for their cluelessness.
Imagine how ridiculous and offensive it would be to say, "I don't necessarily find _________ people sexually attractive, but I do think they're beautiful." And even if it weren't, what a shallow way to think about sexual desire in the first place--as though one body could be substituted for all other bodies of a similar size and shape.
I need to write more sex poems.
For the drive to CT to pick up my daughter:
Juliana Spahr
Peter Gizzi
Clark Coolidge
Fanny Howe
Leslie Scalapino
Bruce Andrews
Kenneth Koch
Rachel DuPlessis
All from PennSound. I'd forgotten this was even possible until this morning when I longingly eyed the stack of unread books on my nightstand. Sudden lightbulb! Several of these are poets I've been meaning to read, but haven't gotten to yet. How cool that I can take them with me.
Little tune-up and the computer at least seems to be rehabilitated. Thank the gods for small miracles. Now, if only I could figure out teletransportation...
O Connecticut, I shall not miss you!
Wherein I take years off a man's life, and cannot myself form words.
In other news, wouldn't you know it, my daughter came down with something just two days into the new job I worked so hard to get. Her teacher called this afternoon to inform me that one of her friends is out with strep. That means no work today, no work tomorrow, a trip to the doctor, antibiotics, and let's hope like hell I don't catch it because I don't have health insurance. Tired of listening to me whine yet? Yeah, me too.
