Anatomy of a Dress

The Stoli bottle’s frost melts to brilliance where I press my
fingers. Evidence. Proof I’m here, drunk in your lamplit kitchen,
breathing up your rented air, no intention of leaving. Our lust
squats blunt as a brick on the table between us. We’re low on
vocabulary. We’re vodkaquiet. Vodkadeliquescent. Vodka doesn’t
like theatrics: it walks into your midnight bedroom already
naked, slips in beside you, takes your shoulders in its icy hands
and shoves. Is that a burglar at the window? No, he lives with
me, actually. Well, let him in for Christ’s sake, let’s actually get this
over with.

Joel Brouwer

I wish I could afford this; I suppose I’ll just start out with his books. But Rabbit! Isn’t this a nifty project? We should do something like this–a collection of teeny tiny lyrics!

Percolatin’.

–In the empty city of proud joy you lay awake.
And why do you think you were called into this world,
refuser.
You whom I could not save.

…

No really.
Why do you think you were called into this world.
Did you, have to, did you
have to be a something every single minute?

In the morning the mailman steps lightly over his shadow,
his mace can going tinny clink-clink
against the keys. The Friday doctor drives by
telling stories to his carphone, whole
Italies of them, and he feels special,

the fallen angel flutters down
past the eye on the dollar bill,
through the rings of Saturn and the spiral world,
he wanted God to love him but God didn’t

so he keeps falling,
if I’m not loved I will keep falling,
if I’m not loved I’m empty nothing (nothing)

and your job was always to be there
when he landed, helpless in his fury,
remember lying on the cool ground in grade school,
the seed and the crumbled moments filling you in,
that wasn’t so bad now was it, non-non-non-non-
light, non-God, non-mommy,
non anything near;

just lie there. That’s it.
You were called to be loved
when you weren’t here–

Brenda Hillman

–In the minor city of black joy you lay awake.
And, you could just about
go out there, couldn’t you,
torn shadow.
Part that was almost loved.

But who would have noticed you.
Would the wind with its nada nada,
or the moon with her acne scars, would she,
or the tulips, whispering too loudly
for you to join them
or the mommy darkness? Not really.

You went out to the night city,
you went suffering again. You called
to the night city, you called suffering again,
and midnight came with its twelve dancing princess type of thing
the dark boys brought their shadows past the bed,
: the daddy the brother the drug-boy
the hunger the meaning
junkie who reads magazines standing up for free
the nice scholar the not-nice scholar
the wild boy of suppose
poet one poet two poet B
and the dream pirate who loved night so well
he wore his bracelets like the moon
and stirred the afternoon into his tea, and

you asked them why
wasn’t I loved and the dark boys said, nyeh nyeh
you didn’t want to be.

But the dark boys loved the won’t part, didn’t they.
You know the won’t part:
won’t work won’t shit won’t love
serene gifts round beaches the so-called
light of day. Most of the universe is filled with it,
it seems like. Dark matter, lamb fat,
Tuesday night television.
The won’t part won’t go away.

(So you asked again why wasn’t I loved,
and the dark boys said
he had a torn shadow, how could we have been.)

Brenda Hillman

Aversion and desire are sometimes two sides of the same coin; it just depends on which side of the coin you’re talking about.

Gil Fronsdal

(–and then I asked how
far should I go.
Go deeper, the voice said;
it was double–)

Brenda Hillman

I’m sure there’s a lot more of this to come, but right now I think the best part of hearing so early from my top choice a number one super school and getting such a generous package is this knowledge: that this is the first thing I have done IN MY ENTIRE LIFE by myself, for myself. All alone, because I knew deep down beyond the places where doubt can even reach that it was the right thing to do.

And I feel so goddamn fucking lucky. And proud! And happy! There’s a party in my life and everyone’s invited.

The program director from ALABAMA just called to tell me I’M IN

What do you know? Enough. Who do you know? The right person. How do you know that this is so? Well, ask yourself how you feel deep down. Down beneath the surface layer of self-suspicion that often furrows your brow, down past the churning, complex rhythms and patterns of thought that leave you never sure what your ultimate opinion about any matter truly is. Deeper down. Further down. Down to your heart, to your bones, to the very private, profound part of you. You feel certainty there. Trust that.

The first thought
was rage–

In certain systems, the point at which that thought
emerges from God’s mind is his consort,
but before she turns her rage onto the world, the violent
lords must give her the body of a woman which is not easy.
Imagine them standing around before they will trap
God’s vague thought into female flesh. The way
their robes undulate, the slightly yellowing raiment–

poor things.
They will not understand the rage.
It will be expressed forever in the split in things.
In the two-toned lupine,
in the cupped, silk lining of the tulip,
in the red and white of all armies in all wars,
it will bend over my dream wearing his face.

The moment my daughter was lifted
from me, that sticky
flesh screamed fury,
for she, too, blamed the female body–
I loved it that she screamed–

and I knew I had been sent to earth to understand that pain.

The nurses moved about, doing something
over to the left. Probably weighing her
on what looked like blue tin. The flash of non-
existence always at the edge of vision,
and in the next moment, some unasked-for radiance.

Under those lights,
the nurses seemed shabby–
the ivory lords, come haltingly
into the bridal chamber, slightly yellowing raiment.

The last pain on earth will not the central pain,
it will be the pain of the soul and not the body,
the pain of the body will be long since gone,
absorbed into the earth, which made it beautiful–

don’t you love the word raiment?
Dawn comes in white raiment.
Something like that.

Brenda Hillman