trout

5 Poems

Jaimie Gusman

from Berrigan’s Postcards

A

Funny how I once wrote for you Organdy.
A mouthful is terrifying:          open.
Four pages long, the tongue   long thread on a plane.
You will wear white and air.     I will be nowhere, the same as nothing.

B

My oldest is not my most ferocious friend.     This sounds frightening,
A train keeps coming on: smoking, whatever.
I was asleep sometime in 2004.               I wanted to sleep forever.
There you were, waking me for pants & maybe to say I should get up.

C

They will perhaps name a disease,
Or a car part after you, something –iator
You were crooked in all sorts of ways.     Your teeth somewhere in the wood
Perpendicular to the ceiling.               Lines of secret cocaine in “Mother’s” sill.
Don’t ever trust an Alter boy.

D

Love is forever, sister. Or so we’ll say until death or the blood dries up.
Through silence / through thickness, threaded tongue.
No one else will understand               The fucked suburban sidewalk waddle.
The fucked necks we grew from chains     (made of gold, luxurious)
The cracks go on you like hair.               The vacuum sounds the alarm.

E

Forever seems not quite slow enough “Enough” being the construct—paper, codes.
If we are talking about showers, nibs, flungulas—life is perhaps too measured
To love as hard as I do.          One wrong word will get you T-Prison time. So I come, get it,
Unfold          Thank you,     I want longer
life in this letter     love.     & no behavior to be good for.