Author: beckys

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Define

The act of making something clear

the time you threw my clothes out on the lawn
cotton blend and rayon country couture
disembodied casualties of my selves

To state the meaning of a term

Cunt, you screamed to the streetlights, parked cars, neighbors,
one eyed Harry harvesting the garbage
as if I were a scrap of cellophane, an empty instant noodle bowl

The meaning of a word using other words

bitch, whore, snatch
I followed the shape of your mouth
as you bullied from the stoop

Intensional, which strives to give the essence of a term

debilitate, render weak and useless, blind, mindless,
leaving a shell within a shell

Extensional, listing an object that a term describes

back to cunt, to bitch, to whore, to snatch

In mathematics, a definition is used to give a precise meaning to a new term
instead of using a pre-existing term

Phoenix
a river rising
dawn reaching for the sun

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South Omaha

Traffic slows at 24th & Q
where the Latino boys
flirt with simple white girls
but never take them home

We slide in on platform shoes
skirts waving
perspiration slicking our thighs
cement so hot you taste it

 

The Stockyard breeze muscles in
all rolled up sleeves
on the backs of ten million cattle

some break free, leap fences
charge down shotgun streets
moon eyed and heavy faces

Polish housewives and thick necked
husbands shout hey, hey
and whistle from their doorways

cowboys cut rope, drag them back
the wildest ones shot dead
the others lined up waiting

But, we are sixteen
the earth shimmies as we walk
some break free, some bleed out

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Unintentional Grace

The hospital plays the first measures of Brahms lullaby
every time a baby is born

I breath the melody
cradling the halls
the powder, the milk breath, the promise

I pull my chair near to you
daughter to father
your body lies fragile,
teasing the monsters under the bed

It’s late
you talk of our time in Newfoundland
the Newfies
their toughness, their resilience
their thickness,
shoulders pushing into twelve foot waves
rowing deep into the bay’s cold belly

The Newfs, the children
running barefoot into Stephenville,
soles calloused
heels honed true on dirt roads,
and paths, and floors
all day, all night
all spring, all summer,
until early winter curled their breath

You ask me to straighten your socks
a request so simple, so small

I crack my knuckles for this solo concerto
study the seam cresting each toe
until you smile
and I spin the next hour
throwing shadow puppets against the wall
trying to catch your light with my fingers

Your heart quivers,
the room becomes an auditorium
the curtain yanked on its metal track
nurses rush to their instruments
tuning C sharps and B flats
playing your IVs like a symphony of strings

It’s quite again
I put my foot to your foot
they are so much the same
and it hurts
the allusion of tomorrow,
of next time,
of soon

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Body Diving

I used to race skateboards down Hanover
one hundred and fifty miles an hour
crash and burn, shred my toes
tape them up and do it again

I used to spin out on dirt bikes
drag my chin through gravel
argue with gravity, centrifugal force
anything that hurt

more than his hand down my pants
nasty breath in my ear
club of a prick
breaking my triangle of wonder
my grommet of fortitude

family is family, man
but not this man
that left me speaking in euphemisms
scared to look down
but knowing that was the only way
to land on my feet and run

look ma, no hands
steering with my knees on Gibraltar Road
spitting chew, jamming throttle
puking Mad Dog 2020 after each pin curve
until the sticky taste of semen
washed clean

at his funeral I saw his mother
she said I was the bravest person
she had ever known

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Yes, Yes, Yes

My lips are your lips
to plunder to bruise
to swell with want

my throat is your throat
to nuzzle to tongue
to nip and to kiss

these shoulders are yours
to cushion your moans
to grip full tilt

these tits are your tits
to nibble to pinch
to suck red raw

these hips to frame
the small of my back
to capture your image

these thighs are your thighs
to open to ride
to reach
deep deep deep inside
and come to me, come to me, come

but baby
this magic, MY magic
is mine

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Sideshow

Those were the heroin days
when brown pelicans
slapped their bellies
across our graves
free styling water rides
panties wrapped around their heads
when time was ordered, sorted
measured by the flavor in our veins 

We caught out breath on Iggy Pop
locked our teeth with Dylan
dug ourselves beneath the canvas
tasting dog hair, dirt, spent semen,
we marveled the grit between our bones
the bright white light
the heat that bent 

Like carnival barkers
we banged the drum from inside out
except, I never caught the rhythm
the syntax of a talker
echo of the big top, the high wire crowd
the he man she man trapeze gazelles

I was the doorstop, the clear the way
passed through, around, behind
keeping that there and me here
ghost me, shading the edges
pencil lead worn smooth

Rolling down my sleeves
I let go the door
all out and over, all out, all over

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A Mother’s Garden

She planted marigolds
behind white plastic edging
carnival poms mugging for the sun
the scent of aged rubber
deflecting mosquitos
ignorant of white suburban ways
the DDT truck rolling up the lane

but they return each year
the marigolds, the mosquitos
thick as sweat in midwest July
as if winter never happened
flowers never beheaded,
insects never dropped dead
in ten days

She worked the patch of garden
kneeling before her blossoms
as if
English formal
Cape Cod nonchalance
Maui hothouse splendor
everything
she imagined marigolds
dreamed of being

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Apron String Theory

I search for inspiration
in the ticking of the clock
the meter, the melody,
the vibration
DNA
giving rhythm to my heart

I chase strands of time
too fine to loom
as they tighten,
thin
string a new dimension
too deep, too far, too all
neurons
leaping lights
across the universe  

Your hand
once centered right in my palm
rises above, beyond
my dreams for you, my love for you
my life I gladly give for you

as you suspend
the natural pull of gravity
I inhale
the beating of your heart

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Waking

It’s that dawn again
fingering the window blinds
loosening the darkness
from my eyes
I let go the dreamscapes
the fading strands

If life is
a near death experience
let me drink the light until I drown
race the blood in my veins
pound the earth with vibrato
dig, dig, dig to China
plumb somersaults all the way down

I’ll shelter in the rain shadows
the downpour’s glow
and hold you
like this
in my arms

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Babtism of Believers

My neighbor fell in with the Baptists
her soul licked clean by Jesus
three feet deep in the Callahan River

With a thorough step
she walks between the lines
of her day glow bible
leaves her driveway and stands
on the corner, averts her eyes
for the laying on of hands?
the filling of the body?
carved into her bones
and begins
prophesying in tongues
incomprehensible
rat-a-tat-tat

I pity her
that she longer no hungers why
the sun rises, falls
what the stars
whisper to the moon

I close my window blinds
But for the grace of God
there I go