Push Birth Seizure-edited

Before the seizure,
he sees a light around people
the way I did
when I leaned forward
to push him away from my body
twenty-two years ago. This time
it is he who leans forward,
remembering somewhere
deep in the impenetrable
darkness I can’t enter,
that he could break my back
with his strength, the hard weight
of his body, if he were to fall
fully onto me.

So we dance a kind of
birthing together:
push and lean, push and lean
until we are bound together,
this time without benefit
of life-sustaining cord. We fall
through the slow, patient air
that seems merciful, as though
it is a parable of love,
only with cold
instructions first.

I am a quick study: I cup my hands
under his head as
he bangs it against the flagstone
floor. My hands are bruised,
pummeled, but he would crack
his head otherwise so I don’t feel
any pain as I push-pull,
and wish I had strength
enough to slit open heaven’s
belly to bring him breath.

I don’t cry because I never
do with pain. No one can convince me
that pain and hell go together.
There is no pain in hell,
only measureless time
that you must bargain for.
Here, now, when his skin
is no longer blue,
and his eyes are lupine
silk, I pull him up and I hold him
and then there is heaven:
the beloved in my arms.

Now the air sings its
parables again and I remember,
there was never pain, never hell
only pearls that fell and were lost,
then found and saved.

SHIVERBUSH JONES

This life teases out of you an incongruous song
made of stair steps and questions and flipping of birds.
But the world sings you back to you in thousands of tongues.

The throwing of bowling balls and the spanking of gongs,
the tripping of triplets and the ripping of shirts--
they’re all just a part of your incomplete song.

Vibrations recycle before very long.
And even the thud of your feet in the dirt
the world will sing back to you in thousands of tongues.

The air that you squeeze out of overused lungs.
The cries and the barks and the purrs and the words.
It’s all just a part of your world-wooing song.

We are never alone so much as among.
Each gesture we make this planet records.
And this world sings you back to you in thousands of tongues.

Love itself is fine, as are lust and longing.
And there will come a happy answer from some exotic bird.
When you step outside and engender your songs,
the world sings you back to you in thousands of tongues.

JD Frey — April 15, 2010
JDIEGOFREY@GMAIL.COM

MY BLIND DATE WITH THE WOLFWOMAN

This room this glass this bed this wine,
this song of lives lived well and rested,
that look that passed between us when
I discovered you were hairy-chested.

The air was thick with lupine lust
a wave that quickly crested.
Dense fur sprang from your hands and bust
and from the snout that manifested.

Full moon through dusty keyhole white
across rare steaks we had requested
and how you fanged them with delight
while I stood back as you'd suggested.

I've thought of you only since that sharp night in bed.
Your lovemaking nip left me single-breasted.
A lunar month later, this scar throbs on my chest
and the thrill that it gives me still fills me with dread
now that the taste of my flesh has been tested.

JD Frey

Separate

From my window, Chicago is a clove of garlic
On an eggplant lake too deep to ford.
You chopped peppers, carrots,
Leaves Romaine, tomatoes on a cutting board.
You asked me to separate a yolk from its white
And I knew I could do it
Because keeping things separate
Gives me no trouble.
So I proved it to you,
Standing at the sink,
Sliding the sun from one half of the sky
To the other
While thin and ropy clouds
Oozed to earth.

Here, I hold it.
I have isolated this burning thing,
This bird‐to‐be,
What now, what will we
Do with it?
From a cabinet,
You pulled vinegar and olive oil
And lemon juice and honey,
And you told me to make dressing.
So I took a fork and popped the tender bird;
I whipped it into froth, and, further,
Poured it on the salad.

Let us share this humble meal –
We, fierce advocates of health.
Let us take these simple steps
To responsibly dine sensibly
To align ourselves so perfectly with earth,
Her crunchy bounty.
Let us raise a fork, a lettuce leaf,
Let us both agree on everything,
Specifically, that yellow yolk
That gives our meal its extra texture:
It really binds it all together.
Once it’s in, we can’t extract it
Can’t take back; we can’t unhatch it.

If asked again,
I might have rather kept it separate.

I didn’t say but might have said
Your healthy salad was a bore
My body craved but mind abhorred
Because I’d rather you just touch me
But we’re talking about salad, now,
We’re talking about making healthy choices
Which is separate from the voice in my head
Not yours but nevertheless course and rough
Saying “you’re not what he wants;
You’re not pretty enough.”
See? A clip, a snip, some rhetoric
And I’m a parsnip on your board
Chopped up in mixed metaphor.

Not so secretly,
Nor, in the end, separately,
I will head home hungry.
I, who am so fond of flying,
So fond of spying on the earth from my window in the sky,
Will shell Midwestern cities like peas –
Davenport, Moline, and Muscatine.
I’ll fight my way through this final leg,
Mourning my bird,
Eating your egg,
And Omaha and Council Bluffs
And Kearney where they searched my car
Will race like oil on a tongue,
Like dressing from a bottle poured,
Until at last, at length, I’ll land
Just two hours from Cheyenne
And two thousand miles from your cutting board.
We’ll retreat into our private bubbles
Because keeping things separate
Gives us no trouble.