It Will Take Place in the Past

Today at summer camp, our instructor gave us about 1.5 hours to work on two poems, which would have been great if we were not supposed to be learning how to prepare students for AP English. Here's what I wrote:

Curriculum Vitae

1)Born into the wind--the Daley City, the city of Sandburgs.
2)Young days like (________________). The breezy trees. The all night hide and seek. The ka-chunk of car locks when we leave the bliss of our neighborhood.
3)A High school looped in tall buildings--black steel for businessmen, red brick for the poor we locked car doors for.
4) Awkward conversations, Hog-butchered attempts at dates.
5) Leavinghome|moreschool. Independence is a fake ID.
6) Disconnect. Death of friends. I go away to Europe.
7) 75 resumes become a job at a newspaper in the middle of nowhere. More alcohol than ever.
8) Back to school, which is much better when you care, and better still when what you care about is caring about the impetus of locked car doors.
9) I start teaching. I meet you. I end teaching.
10) For two weeks, I am a rock star in New Zealand. (This is not metaphor. It should be read literally.)
11) The move. The drive. The new home.
12) Teaching again and you are still here. Happiness follows.




It will take place in the past.

It starts with the sun and an onion
Oil and garlic
Fire and metal.
She's up early (She is always up early but
she makes sure everyone knows
when she's up early for the sauce).

Sizzles and pops

Meat is next--strange, grizzled pieces saved
From the trash.
(The animals are unknown and never the same but with a little red wine they become mythical.)

Sizzles and pops
And then the tomatoes, a boil
And then the lid. The reduction of fire.

(Meanwhile we are at the table preparing pasta like unionless autoworkers assembling a vehicle.)

That night, at the last moment, we eat
together.

Midlife Crisis

I wanted to have a blog called "Manifest Destiny" but last night when I went to write it, I couldn't remember the title so I called it "Midlife Crisis" instead. We've reached the other coast and the lawn is refusing water. The termites are back. The sun becomes oppressive around 5 pm. There is little culture here, so those who crave it express it as hillbillies would: backwards and extreme. Or was that extremely backwards? I have grapes in the fridge, cold and firm, but not frozen as I'd prefer.

My summer vacation

It has been a really long time, hasn't it?
I'd say! Last time I heard from you, I was pregnant.
You are no longer pregnant?
No.
How did it end?
Positively.
That is a relief.
What has been going on?
Well, the wound has healed, but the bleeding has not subsided.
?
What?
I said, "?" as in, "I do not understand."
What do you not understand: vocabulary or concepts?
Concepts.
OK then. I was worried about that and I can now see the source of your confusions.
Will you be able to clarify them?
I do not thi.nk so. I, too, am conceptually confused, or possibly mislead.
Is that the proper punctuation?
Speech has no punctuation.
Granted, but you paused awkwardly.
Did I?
Have you read that poem?
"Did I?"
"I, too"
Oh yes indeed.
I, too!
Let's discuss the punctuation in said poem.
My left foot is asleep. Which one am I again?
How do you mean?
How do I mean about discussing the poem or the nature of my existence?
Existence. Am I pregnant or wounded?
Well neither of us is pregant.
Neither in the nether regions wounded.
Is the Netherlands a place you are not supposed to view?
I have thought about this often. I also wonder if dutch is a bastard version of deutsch.
Wow.
I know.