The garden dirt, frost-stiff, sends
you in shivering. Bracing my jawbone,
dirt shadows your hands as they fall
toward your hips, your neck slouched.
“The tulips,” you sob shaking,“the tulips
sprouted, never grew, dangled.”
I nod slow-hinged as you back me
against the fireplace, empty, sliding
my shoulders across the mantlespace.
Now, tear-streaked: “Peas, they’re peas I planted,
too cold to dig out,” your finger tips raw
(dirt, blood, and my face tumbling in my nods),
“the flowers have turned and only autumn to blame.”
And I nod, and I nod, a metronome, I nod,
gathering all I can think to respond:
So strange you’ve not brought the winter-peas in.
“So strange you’ve not brought the winter-peas in.”

She smiled nails
bare and bulging
from the molding,

when I was
building, flailing
my arms into

question-dark
spaces seeking
my tools, I caught

my skin on her
rust-lip tips, ripped
myself from elbow to

wrist, and screamed
myself to tear
her from the wall. 

Fog-eyed, the words blend:

"perm" and "poem" confuse, fuse,

neither survive heat.

I bit your index finger,
drawing blood from my bottom
sharp-tooth, and drew circles
around my elbow with the bleeding.

Target-drawn, I left you
punctured, found ceramic tiles,
sharpened my arm-bone in the shards.

Bent and prepared I hold it,
now, embraces like weapons.

"they became bloodthirst, everything"
mouths stained and rumors
houses, naked and simple,
call for wall-fill and paint,
furniture sitting silly-spent,


the men out killing, cleaning
blood from bone, regret bills,
formal dishes, formal-meat.

Her white-dyed fur muff
armored her right arm, rabbit,
first, it was a cast.
I gained ground, took drinks,
counting pearls against corners.
I asked to pet it.

Academy, hair-prices,
service, styling, web-bundles
haunt paraffin clusters,
smooth, silk, feet-lushed
toner: shampooed like gel scalps

wedding, her mesh-veil
slashes across her forehead,
eyes polished: French masque

two women, salon, push
pinched pitches for Polite,
screeching manners, tone-tall
as hair-tall; these secrets,
these battles, fought behind,
painted, eyes like open hands
they take turns following,
chemicals cover it in blonde

cattail tips ash, fall

flaking into hush-ripples;

worn jeans, dusted cuffs

Your oak-paneled smile,
the cotton on your breath,
the milk-trails you left
dancing in the kitchen,

I weave them into gins,
drunk-sinking myself into puddles
I collected pieces of you near.

you say, "you don't know":
bite-nails or poison lilies,
but, "you understand"

wall-blocks, brick-corners,
concrete teeth gnashing gravel
meals night-wet with steam

crows' heads fever-cock
scourging for prey; your ankle
thin against my grip

embers, my kisses
scald your palms; your bandaged hands
ashing from my jaw

Open my chest, drink

the beer resting there, brewed from

the flow of my blood.

Open my chest, ash

your cigarettes on the tray

carved from my sternum.

Open my chest, wash

your face with my lungs, drown

choking on my air.

Under your fingers,

a throat.

My throat

rattling

songs against your hands.

My hands

trussed behind

my back under your bent knee.

Tangled in your teeth,

mouthfuls of hair.

Your hair, tight

against your scalp, tight

around your tongue, tight

around my tongue,

gagging me.

We forget grass stains.
Scabs turn smooth, neglecting scars.
Multiple washes
remove our worn grooves.
Chipped teeth loosen and regrow,
aging like clockwork.

Living room corners
harbor me during parties,
anchored by snack trays
away from the threat
of kitchen bustle and heat.
Conversations skip
past me, I listen,
nodding politely, and smile,
trapped in false concern.
She skitters around,
bouncing between small circles
and offering drinks.

While grey-green clouds loom,
raindrops wave-crater puddles,
soaking everything.

Smoking on the porch,
I will leave the door open,
listen to the news.
Sometimes, hungry, I
bolt toward the kitchen food-cache
and then to my bed.

I forget the door.

She chastises my smoking,
my eating, the dog.

The dog will sneak in,
terrorize the cat at night,
escape by morning.

She loves that damn cat.

I apologize again,
ignored at dinner.

The dog bays--then still,
pointing at squirrels and waiting
for permission, blood,
the moment to move.
We let her in on cold nights,
she sleeps at our feet
and chases the cat.
They wrestle: gentle, aware.
The cat welcomes her.

Theory

You remember standpoint theory. You think about your gender in regards to your standpoint, your cultural positioning, your world view. You recognize the privilege in your soft androgyny. You recognize the ubiquitous pressures steering you toward a particular masculinity become weaker the more privilege you garner. You think to your own social capital. You try to see yourself as a heterosexual, white, educated, middle-class man. You notice your view of your position is clouded. You can not see yourself clearly, the assumed normalcy of your position creates fog and prevents your immediate analysis. You recognize you are the constant demographic. You understand every sitcom on network television because you are the presumed audience. You understand the dramas and romances of every film because the white-washed assumed cultures of their protagonists, their antagonists, their universes are the same assumed culture you live inside. You realize you have never explained an argument from the white perspective. You have never been asked, “As a white man....” Your answer is the safe answer, the constant answer, the answer of society. As a heterosexual man, your answer is the answer of every president, the answer of power, of privilege, of permission. You notice the image in the mirror is the image of the oppressor but even your guilt over the cultural history of the body you inhabit is a privilege. You realize guilt and androgyny are, for you, indulgences of class, of your standpoint. You recognize you have the time to consider your guilt and revel in it without consequence. You realize the ease of white androgyny compared to the pressure of normative standards of masculinity combining with specific cultural standards of masculinity in the face of those normative standards. You like to think the consideration of others increases your objectivity, the knowledge of the society built around you which you have accepted by omission of protest, which you have accepted via your continued presence. You hope your education is enough to guard you against the title of appropriator, studier, observer. You hope your quite androgyny, in attitude more than body, serves as some form of quiet protest to your dominate position. You hope you present an alternative, if only a soft one. You try lending your voice when you hope it can help. You strive to understand. You hope. You hope. You hope you expand your glance, your view. You hope.

Institutions

You think of your family and how they shape and mold you, seep into every story, dominate every personal history. You think of your sister, five years older than you, forcing you and your younger brother to play house. You remember playing school while she taught you and your brother. You remember the collaboration in the games, the peacefulness, the lack of aggression. You remember wanting to play fight with your brother but the game morphing into karate school with your older sister as the sensei. You remember wanting to look like your favorite wrestlers, wanting so badly to simulate their face paint. You remember your sister learning the patterns and painting your face with her make-up and lip-glosses. You remember wearing her choir-dress to play as the kilted Scotsman Rowdy Roddy Piper. You remember appropriating her showgirl Halloween costume’s neon pink, tailed blazer, complete with requisite glittered trim and cuffs, for a ring jacket matching the flamboyant entrance attire of other wrestlers. You think how television permeates through your stories along with your family. You remember recording free previews from the Disney channel when it still had to be ordered. You remember watching The Mickey Mouse Club, Bonkerz, The Care Bears, and My Little Pony. You remember watching the violence of Terminator 2: Judgment Day after family trips to the beach and almost wearing out your copy of Gremlins 2: The New Batch. You remember watching the dating show Singled Out over dinner with your family and now watching King of Queens or The Newly Wed Game. You think back to trying to convince your brother of the merits of the new My Little Pony cartoon while he watched Michael Bay’s Transformers films. You remember your mother indulging your love of low budget horror films and wrestling tapes on trips to laundry-mat video stores. You remember watching and rewatching your sisters favorite musicals. You catch yourself humming songs from Grease, The Sound of Music, and Rent. You realize you can not decide if you admire Tyler Durden from Fight Club more than Billy Bigelow from Carousal. You think to Bam Bam Bigelow, one of your favorite wrestlers because of his flame-themed outfit and fire tattoos on his skull. You remember your brother watching wrestling with you but leaving the room bored, asking you to retrieve him if the women wrestlers came on again.

Body

You think of your height. You remember your shoulders towering over the shoulders of your classmates standing in line in grade school. You remember standing the back of photos of family and organizations and any group photos with standing. You remember walking gangly at fourteen through record stores and bumbling past strangers in the isles, tripping over your feet. You think of your shoes. You lament most stores do not carry size fifteen but lauded online shopping trips find them occasionally. You remember basketball as a constant, lingering suggestion. You remember making the seventh grade B-team and sitting on the beach, cheering on your teammates throughout the season. You remember being kept on the team because of your spirit. You remember gaining weight in high school and becoming more comfortable with your size. You remember the nagging suggestions to play football once you reached high school. You remember giving into the suggestion. You remember playing offensive tackle, the guaranteed violence of every play matched against the defensive line with the wholesome goals of protecting your quarterback from the blitz or giving your running back room to run. You remember laughing at the dichotomy. You remember moving in the middle of high school and ending your football career after your second concussion. You remember your mother’s happiness about this decision to protect your large body. You remember missing the grind of practice but not the stress of games. You remember squeezing into school bus seats in full pads with your teammates on the way to games. You remember auditioning for mascot at your new school. You remember lounging on the school bus with the bag containing your costume under the seat as the rest of the cheerleaders chatted about classes at the new high school around you. You remember laughing at the new dichotomy. You suddenly think of dancing. You remember finally becoming comfortable enough in your body to dance well. You think back to four proms, countless formals, and infinite nights dancing in bars. You remember junior prom. You remember being told you made a good boyfriend because of your size, because you were so masculine. You remember not taking the compliment well, smiling awkwardly, feeling disconnected from your body. You remember tall girlfriends complimenting your height, making them feel comfortable wearing heels and boots. You think back to hugs given by your mother and father and being taller than both of them. You remember your father’s jokes about your weight and becoming a vegetarian for six months. You remember when your father took up power lifting and could bend quarters, how people often mistook his mountains of muscles for fat. You remember laughing at this third dichotomy.

Language

You think of your brother and his many nicknames with the family. You think of Cake and Boo and Cakey. You try to think of your own pet names with the family but only remember abbreviations, shortenings. You remember your father calling you son like he did your brother. You remember your mother calling you sweetie like she did with your brothers and sisters. You feel a lack, a hole where your own language should sound, your own word. You think of your name. You think of the spelling and the missing ‘e’ and the pride you take in the simplicity. You remember meeting girls in fourth grade with the same name, with the same spelling, and asking your mother about it. You remember her telling you your spelling was most likely the more feminine way of spelling your name but she liked that spelling better. You ask about your family, searching for namesakes or reasons for your name, your spelling, your word. Your mother tells you the name begins with you. You remember feeling hollow then, empty of history. You ask where your name came from, wondering where your word, your place holder gifted from your parents, originated. You mother tells you she simply always liked the name. You remember the dissatisfaction with her answer. You remember frowns and the bitter, tinny taste of fought-back tears. You remember wanting something solid, you remember wanting a boy’s spelling of your word. You research your name now, curious of the etymology. You find your name has history, if not in your family. You find your name dates back centuries. You find your solid ground in your word. You find your name comes from the word quarry. You smile in your new fact, in your name which comes from stone, from inside the earth, from mining, from labor. You suddenly slow your smile curious why the fresh masculinity of your name brings such joy. You think of rocks and pits and wonder how these words relate to you past your name and their shared history. You realize you are not that solid. You think of the girls in the fourth grade with the same name and wonder if they know the same story for the word. You realize it is not a shared word. You realize the name only becomes as solid as you are solid. You realize suggesting the name to friends with coming children is not suggesting earth, or strength, but suggesting you, your story, the meaning you have attached to yourself. You stop researching your name. You start writing it.

Before You Were Born

You think of life before you were born. You suddenly picture streamers sailing across Japanese wrestling rings thrown out of adoration for the wrestlers. You trace the streamers back from the ring to the throwers who are lost in the crowd. You realize how the streamers, red and green and purple and orange, symbolize influence. You realize life before you were born is life while you were born and life immediately after you were born. You wonder what happens to the streamers once they are swept under the ring, after the matches, after the crowd has left. You store the pageantry of Japanese pro wrestling for the moment. You think of your father. You remember his face full of stubble smiling under a mustache and trucker cap at a bundle of blankets. You sleep or cry somewhere in the sea of blankets under a head full of new hair. You think of the faded photograph which imprinted this image in you, the unmatched but barely recalled outfit of your father. You remember his lack of a fashion sense, his sweatshirts matched with scrub pants. You think of the eighties. You think of the excuses of excess and a good economy. You remember your father’s Cincinnati Bengals jersey and the bumper sticker on the black briefcase which held your birth certificate. You think of your father’s disappointment watching the Bengals lose the Super Bowl when you were seven months old. You think of the halftime show, Be Bop Bamboozled in 3-D, the first ever network broadcast in 3-D, introduced by Bob Costas, sponsored by Diet Coke, and hosted by Elvis Presto. You remember your grandmother’s love of Elvis Presley and the room in her house dedicated to him. You remember other celebrities vaulted to ideas. You remember your father watching and laughing at old Clint Eastwood films. You remember silent cowboys smoking in Italian fake-Mexicos firing their revolvers in extreme close-ups while Ennio Moricone scores whistled along in the background. You remember your mother’s crush on Patrick Swayze and your father’s crush on Sandra Bullock. You think of Public Enemy and Spike Lee but remember your father listening to Alabama and Johnny Cash and Conway Twitty. You remember your mother listening to The Beach Boys. You remember Van Halen. You remember your father blaring I’m Your Ice Cream Man in his truck without any trace of irony. You revel in the lack of irony. You think of your grandfather. You think of cycles. You realize your grandfather defined manhood for your father as a child as your father defined manhood for you as a child. You think of your grandfather in the army, in armor, in Vietnam. You think of your grandfather’s funeral. You remember his obituary only mentioning only his retirement from the paper-mill where he worked for decades. You think of your father joining the army out of high school. You think back to cycles. You realize why your college education was a vital suggestion, a demand, from your father and grandfather. You realize how they shaped the man they wanted you to become. You realize everything shaped the man you would become. You think back to the streamers discarded under a wrestling ring in Japan. You realize they once hung spooled in stores, were manufactured in a factory. You think of influence. You think of stories.