...WHEREIN THE DOGS ANSWER YOUR PHONE
My voice sends your dogs into raving fits.
Identification is a terrible thing to waste.
You wrote to me of the suicide
you once loved
felt of course responsible
of course of course
memoirs of a Catholic girlhood
being beaten and raped by a guy you slept with
is not reason to dismiss him
is it?
And I, who knows guilt, was filled with fear
and oh yes...lust, that too--
Show me the man who is not passion's slave
and I'll ask how I get out of the morgue.
2
So, playing Selfless, a hand in a card game,
I called to see "if you were all right."
I called because I wanted you.
And I called to see if you truly were alive
because you've tried the same trick as
some of your lovers: the Nemby bottle
the razor or the gas.
Your emotional frequencies are pitched to the dogs' ears.
The beasts bark at me across the wires
and I hear what you are not saying
sometimes I scare myself and want to poop on the sidewalk.
3
"Three days," you say, "for three days
I've not answered the phone
until you called.
Thank you, Kenny.
You sometimes think like me.
I don't want to see anyone,
hear about a world that will not restore my losses
or the God that butt-raped me
even worse than my boyfriend did.
"I've let the phone ring off the hook into Hell
while I made myself a sandwich,
inhaled beer up my snout like it was blow,
left the house only to take the dogs for their walks
because there's enough shit in here without them
adding to it by following that bitch Nature.
They love protecting me.
You are the first friend I have allowed
to penetrate my space--
oh God did I say that
I can read your mind, Ken, can't I?
That is not a pun, not even a single entendre.
I cannot stay here forever
I've won a timeshare trip to Cancun.
I got drunk the night he died
and ordered the pure anchovy pizza
that made the driver quit.
4
Your voice arrests me
it is sweetness and absolution
love for once without sex
holds me back from the dark tonight
don't you love responsibility like this
paying for the hard-on I can't see but
know is there?
It's only your voice,
and my two dogs lift their heads
bark, yowl, stand close to the machine
fascination and fear, then rushing back to my feet again
What have they heard you not say?
KTW/11-22-06
An accident. I found it in a notebook I appropriated to become a
student again. The first line was the only thing that sounded familiar
and has been left intact. I know who I wrote it for, and what
occasioned it. I had called the Left Coast with a message intended for
her answering machine. She picked up while I was talking to the tape
recorder. The young lady told me her dogs went crazy at the sound of my
voice. From there, it's the usual. I'm surprised the damned thing kept
growing. It probably needs a center. When I'm through applying
effleurage to tight limbs, I'll worry about it. First I'll go hunt the
Corgi by owl-light, 'tis a deed of darkness.
ken
--
Ken Wolman andreachenier.net rainermaria.typepad.com
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For he purrs in thankfulness when God tells him he's a good Cat.
For he is an instrument for the children to learn benevolence upon.
For every house is incomplete without him, and a blessing is lacking in the spirit.
--from Christopher Smart, "Jubilate Agno"
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