Free The Book of Goodbyes by Jillian Weise Page B

don’t believe in God, but . . . If time is written on an 8 × 11 piece of paper, all of time, if that’s true, then you are simultaneously buying flowers, taking the woman from the park bench in your mouth and making love to your girlfriend while she watches a stranger pee into your commode. It is, after all, your commode. Where is your rage?

    *

    I notice you, noticing you, nostalgic for the time before you, which is her time not yours, which you would like for yours, which you would like to pocket along with the change from the ten dollar bill, since the flowers were only five, since you bought carnations, roses were ten, and though you had the ten dollar bill, you wanted something (Spinoza and others agree: “Desire is the essence of man”), a beverage, which requires going into the bar, asking the woman with the orange if she will join you in the bar. Isn’t she hot in this heat? She must be.

    *

    We are getting stale. I call us stale. I can feel us getting stale and it sickens me.

    More.

    You sicken me.

    More.

    I took the flowers and I cut the stems off the flowers. I cut the stems off the flowers because you wanted me to do it. You urged me to cut the stems off the flowers and I do not regret one bit of it. Not even in the morning.

    *

    The problem with flowers and buying them is implicit in the exchange of, yes, that ten dollar bill. Times you have bartered flowers for sex? Times you have tried to barter flowers for sex? People in the world who believe in time? Time it will take for the woman biting into the orange to look up and notice your flowers?

    *

    Spinoza says, “One and the same thing can at the same time be good, bad and indifferent.” The same thing, at the same time, look up, oranges are the essence of man, biting into them is the essence of man, look up, look up. Aren’t you hot? In this heat, you must be.

AFFAIRS

    Affairs are amply appreciated by contemporary critics under the name of discontinuity. Affairs come into their own when we translate the whole question from structure to behavior. Affairs disappear altogether. Many affairs remain unabsorbed. The concept of the affair gives another dimension to the impact of epiphanies. Affairs in general may be analyzed according to whatever distinctions one uses in analyzing. Affairs are associated with shortness. Final affairs are an obstacle to artistic comprehension caused by the seemingly premature placing of the end. Such affairs exist in every perception that one’s tentative comprehension is not complete. Such affairs depend on the convention that “every thing counts.” Affairs challenge us at a more fundamental level. Affairs are never completely resolved. Final affairs are the most extreme.

POEM FOR HIS GIRL

    I’ll tell you which panties
    look good on you

    psychedelic plaid
    with ruffles on the waist

    patriotic polka dot
    the whale print is very

    what’s his name again?
    Those would look good on you

    those too, those also
    I could see you

    wearing those in his truck
    out past the Esso station

    to the field party
    that one time

    you got drunk
    and fucked around

    with some of his friends
    and he cracked 6 beers

    and felt old and drove
    to the cemetery

    and pissed on yr father’s grave
    here he comes round

    the corner—
    Are you writing about her?

    I hope you’re not
    writing about her

    If we went shopping
    I mean today dammit

    you could ask why
    I’m sleeping with him

    then push me
    into the hangers

    I’m not supposed
    to try you on anymore

    The dead walk into poems
    all the time

    Nobody complains

INTERMISSION

TINY AND COURAGEOUS FINCHES

    Iguazú Falls, the Argentine side, a cave,
    behind the water, two tiny and courageous
    finches, Bitto and Marcel, spend the day
    flying in and flying out.

    Bitto is most proud, daily caw, paid
    vacation and space to think aloud.
    He likes knowing where everyone is
    and that where they are, he is far from.

    He