Friday, May 13, 2011

Friday Love Poem: John Beck!

I know you haven’t made your mind up yet,But I would never do you wrong.
I’ve known it from the moment that we met-
No doubt in my mind where you belong.

-Bob Dylan

Carol claims sandwiches taste best cut on the diagonals-
  the same sweet certainty
  with which she says so many things.

I approach our kitchen counter like a chemistry set,
  isolating variables.
I control jelly to bread ratios and the angles of digestion
  find no difference,
  and still she insists.

My parents taught me so many ways to say
  You're wrong.
My father spoke in silences-
  left the air around him shimmering with heat,
  loaded every roll of his shoulders with weight
  then passed that yoke to me.
Mom screamed,
  with the thick vein of her forehead pulsating,
  slammed doors and wept.
I learned to sing acrimony in quarter-tone scale.
 
And I sing well.
When I find a tune Carol recognizes,
  we can sing a surly canon,
  harmonize sighs and shrugs and rolling eyes.
I know there are other songs.
  I've heard their hum in the homes of friends,
  the descants spill out open windows
  and the melodies nestle in the corners
  with warm resonance.
I'm trying to learn the words,
  but they're sung softly-
  so softly.
  
So I stand at our kitchen counter,
  tap my toe in quarter time,
  and begin to cut at the corners.

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