ABOUT

CONTENTS

EDITORIAL

ARCHIVE

LAGNIAPPE

MAST

SUBMISSIONS

 
THREE POEMS
by Kathryn Lineberger


Douglas Day

He had a big butt and he
Became the butt around the office.
Who wears pleated corduroy pants? He was dumb.
Vocational school and Tops Appliance City on his resumé.
But they couldn't find anyone else so he started Monday.

Someone else might have done it better.
It didn't matter -- we had Douglas.
Assignments, they laughed, were explained very carefully.
But every task had its own life, its own joy.
ELEVATOR BANK BIG BUILDING IMPORTANT FAX FAX MACHINE SEND.
He could do it. Eight weeks passed before I said hello.

Did he have another life? A house in Queens,
Older brothers with the same shiny hair?
The legs inside the corduroy pleats didn't work properly. One lagged
Like it knew something the other didn't, carried Douglas
At its own pace, retarded him to other people.
I hadn't noticed until a Division Associate Executive
Shrieked: "Dude, you're limping! What's up with that?"
And decided in the meeting that Tuesdays would Douglas Days while
The victim sat fixing a smile. A child kept up
Past bedtime to taste the adult world of spilled drinks
And vicious slights. Welcome. Laughing with the group
Is a social defense mastered by all hominids
But Douglas was not nervous.
IMPORTANT MEETING TALK BOSS BOSS TALK SMILE SMILING SEND.
Can you please make copies of these? He could do it.
Someone else might have done it better.
It didn't matter -- we had Douglas.

Did newspapers disturb Douglas?
Did daily reports prove to him that the world
Grows crueler and stupider and more meaningless with every revolution?
Did Douglas debate the difference between
Complacency and shuddering silent fury?
Did he ever try to kill himself?

Our only conversation took place in the elevator. He was fine that day
even though it was raining
and he enjoyed his internship very much.
Bend over Douglas, I want to hold
you close. Face like the prettiest apple with a simple smile
and easy line. You're uncomplicated.
FEDERAL EXPRESS ENTER ENTER DECAF HALF-DECAF TWO COPIES IN THE FILE SEND.
He would do it.

On a Tuesday afternoon months later I noticed Douglas was no longer there.
Back to his classes at Queens College shrugged the supervisor.
"Who? That kid with the cane?" hollered the Division Associate Executive.
I tried hard for a moment
To imagine Douglas
Doing things somewhere else:
Waiting in line for a movie or being lustfully pressed
Up against a wall in some dark place. But I couldn't
Imagine it, not even his face.
All I could think was: today is Douglas Day.




Proof of Weather, Proof of Changeling

"A scorcher," the weatherman said.
"Take a look at my map roiling in
From southern kettles: hot murk. Doppler radar
Shows a beast was felled
Heaving and thrashing
It lost the water it had been gathering.
"As you can see," the weatherman said,
"The impact opened a to-bursting
Carcass and the cloud of sad gasses within rose
Fast and floated our way. That's the mass you see here folks. That's the threatener."

And it came on docile. Not a storm,
But a clay warmed
And steaming it dragged in so thoughtful
Skyscrapers couldn't prick it, pinning
Limbs, making stomachs ache, tongues
Fat. Clothes of any weight
Dragged their wearers
To the ground and even the lightest nighties
Lapped the dreamers down.
Drowsy and itching some sought the tall night for relief:
Any shrill metal,
Any smooth porcelain.
Idling around redbrick corners
For a breeze borrowing brains from the maddest dogs and circling and circling and again. No rest.
            Blood into oxygen.
            Lead into veins.
            Love like waterlogged.
One woman paused near naked and leaned
Into a pane of glass to see if it could cool. No such luck but
She spied a man reflected
In its smooth denial,
A lover. There! His jaunty pace,
The swing of his free arm. He sliced through the heat with impossible rhythms dressed in Fall's
Unforgiving wools and buttons and leather.
Damn he looked good
Marching through the delirious weather.
Something lifted his hair off his forehead;
His own robotic way or perhaps the comforting breeze that accompanies television freshness. A
gentle machine.
They say that evil reveals itself by being the most unnatural.
Cheek to pane she recalled a spring night like a slap
When the spine of her bed loosed from its posts
And crashed to the ground
With this man in it. She had sweated
A sluiceway from desire and
splashed the bedroom with the Flings of arms and bucking legs
While he stayed dry as dust
and Didn't once even show his teeth.
Now water stained the pavement at her feet
And he strode off
In the direction of a bright yellow light,
Cool as a closed mine. She followed him measuring carefully and overcame his sturdy body with
a toss. The back of his head bounced on the pavement and spun back to meet her offense.
He smiled without opening his mouth.
"Hello. I didn't see you there."
He put his hand on her wet back.
"I snuck," she explained. Sweat
Poured from her forehead, from her chin,
From her tangled hair and she asked:
"You're never going to melt, are you?"
Everything was spent
Then, every last thing.
As a boy dragged the evening's waste from
A popular restaurant she found peace in
The soft rotting mass, ears and eyes covered. On
The slick concrete uneaten bones and rinds and slime buoyed
Her tired frame until
Morning. And she rested.



Regular and Random

I don't believe in astrology and
I don't trust the lottery,
But where millions meet and motivations
Clash you could find you face a perfectly
Arranged situation, a binocular filter of regular and random.
This is God's work.

Shadows pass across the window
And you face the Atlantic just as a wave heaves a tumbling body up.
A pigeon grows a tumor on its beak
And a tornado moves only your house.
A teenager tosses a match to the ground
And a snake writhes inside its rubbery egg.
You might enjoy a round of congratulations.
For placement.
For vision.
For luck.
But you know:
The balls fell together like snow
With the right amount of
Love and hate they grow.
A gift from an inscrutable clock, a phenomenon.
Don't try to measure its potential
For disaster. Or gleen the fruit
It might bear. Eager's for nothing and review
Skews the soup. You could be wrong.

Take as much air into your lungs
As they will hold.
Remember: no two are alike.