The Book of Goodbyes Read online

  Copyright © 2013 by Jillian Weise

  All rights reserved

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  First Edition

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  Publications by BOA Editions, Ltd.—a not-for-profit corporation under section 501 (c) (3) of the United States Internal Revenue Code—are made possible with funds from a variety of sources, including public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency; the Literature Program of the National Endowment for the Arts; the County of Monroe, NY; the Lannan Foundation for support of the Lannan Translations Selection Series; the Mary S. Mulligan Charitable Trust; the Rochester Area Community Foundation; the Arts & Cultural Council for Greater Rochester; the Steeple-Jack Fund; the Ames-Amzalak Memorial Trust in memory of Henry Ames, Semon Amzalak and Dan Amzalak; and contributions from many individuals nationwide. See Colophon on page 74 for special individual acknowledgments.

  Cover Design: Sandy Knight

  Cover Art: Matthew Woodson

  Interior Design and Composition: Richard Foerster

  Manufacturing: McNaughton & Gunn

  BOA Logo: Mirko

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Weise, Jillian Marie.

  [Poems. Selections]

  The book of goodbyes : poems / by Jillian Weise. — First edition.

  pages ; cm

  ISBN 978-1-938160-14-1 (pbk) – ISBN 978-1-938160-15-8 (ebook)

  I. Title.

  PS3623.E432474C65 2013

  813'.6—dc23

  2013013139

  BOA Editions, Ltd.

  250 North Goodman Street, Suite 306

  Rochester, NY 14607

  www.boaeditions.org

  A. Poulin, Jr., Founder (1938–1996)

  for Josh Bell, immanentizing the eschaton

  CONTENTS

  One

  Up Late and Likewise

  The Ugly Law

  Decent Recipe for Tilapia

  I’ve Been Waiting All Night

  Café Loop

  How to Treat Flowers

  Affairs

  Poem for His Girl

  Intermission

  Tiny and Courageous Finches

  Go On High Ship

  Marcel Addresses Kate (As He Would If He Could)

  Two

  Why I No Longer Skype

  Portrait of Big Logos

  Once I thought I was going to die in the desert without knowing who I was

  Semi Semi Dash

  Poem for His Ex

  Goodbyes

  For Big Logos, in Hopes He Will Write Poems Again

  Be Not Far From Me

  Curtain Call

  Elegy for Zahra Baker

  Notes

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Colophon

  ONE

  UP LATE AND LIKEWISE

  It never stopped raining when I was with him

  and we were wet and there were parties.

  He was from another decade. It was honest.

  With some you can never tell but with him

  I could. My decade let the POWs come home.

  What did your decade do? The thing about him is

  he keeps being the thing. You could never

  count on him. I did. It never stopped raining

  and I could, it was honest, tell.

  Would you like to be in the same decade with me?

  Would you like to be caught dead with me?

  THE UGLY LAW

  Any person who is diseased, maimed, mutilated or

  can I continue reading this? Will it affect my psyche

  so that the next time Big Logos comes over

  I will not be there in the room? Instead I will be

  wandering a Chicago street in my dress with my

  parasol as a cane, on the verge of arrest, where arrest

  could mean “stopping” or “to keep the mind fixed

  on a subject,” where the subject is the diseased,

  maimed, mutilated self of 19th c. Chicago, the self

  in any way deformed so as to be unsightly

  and will I tell him to stop looking, tell him I’m tired

  and I’m about to be arrested for walking in public

  and I can’t possibly climax when I am an improper

  person who is not allowed in or on the streets,

  highways, thoroughfares or will he say we’re alone,

  no one is watching, there is your bedside table

  and there your mirror and who am I kidding?

  I won’t tell him anything. There is no room

  in bed for this. It does no good to bring things up

  from the 19th c. or from last week when the things

  have to do with—how do I say it—what is the word

  I usually use? Last week I said it like this:

  “Big Logos, a moth came out from hiding

  as soon as I had taken my leg off and the moth

  said, ‘Ha little cripple. Now you can’t get me

  with the broom.’” Then I laughed so he would

  know it’s okay to laugh. I do it like a joke.

  I do it like it’s nothing. Why the cover-up?

  Why are the laws stacked with it and I never

  in high school heard of it? The maimed shall not

  therein or thereon expose himself or herself

  to public view under penalty of staring,

  pointing, whispers, aphorisms such as “We are all disabled”

  or “What a pretty face you have” or “God gives

  and God takes away” or one dollar for each offense.

  One dollar in 1881 is like $20 today. I wanted to compare it

  to something like dinner at Ruby Tuesday or a bra

  on sale at Victoria’s Secret, as if by comparing

  the amount to something I have bought, I would buy

  the penalty out. Then the penalty and all its horror

  would be gone instead of arrested, kept in mind,

  dwelled on when Big Logos comes over or forget him

  when I am in the supermarket or forget the supermarket

  when I am in front of twenty-four legs in a classroom

  or forget the classroom when I am on the couch

  watching TV: how will I not think of the woman

  in Chicago trying to hide her limp, her thoughts

  on her limp, trying not to bring it up, draw attention to it,

  or what will happen if she is caught by the constable?

  On the conviction of any person for a violation

  of this section, if it shall seem proper and just,

  the fine provided for may be suspended for 130 years

  until a person enters “cripple” in the search engine

  on Project Muse because a person has no cripple friends

  and has started to think cripples don’t exist

  and never did and finds the law. Why have I posted

  the ordinance on the mirror and why have I traded

  the lube in the bedside table for a twenty dollar bill?

  What’s that supposed to do? Help the history slide in?

  Help me remember? Such a person will be detained

  at the police station, where he shall be well

  in the company of criminals, concrete and moths

  and a small window to the forbidden street cared for,

  until he can be committed to the county poor house.

  I am not poor. I am not even unsightly. What a pret
ty face

  I have I’ve been told. Big Logos, will you attest

  to my sightliness? Is this all in the past? Why are you

  sleeping with me, anyway? Aren’t you afraid?

  DECENT RECIPE FOR TILAPIA

  Tell your back home friends it means nothing

  and you will drop him as soon as you have

  friends in the city. If you had more friends,

  you would not sleep with him. If not him,

  who would share your Tilapia? No beloved meal

  begins, “Alone before a plate of fish . . .”

  Find your market. “Are you single?” the man

  behind the counter asks. What to think?

  For meals, you are inside a couple.

  From inside the couple, you have someone

  to call while standing in line. “Does your

  girlfriend know?” you must never ask.

  Instead, “So many fish and which?”

  The laws of attraction are this: There are

  no laws of attraction. A person likes

  a person. Both parties like each other

  and in each other enjoy being liked.

  Baste the fish in lemon and butter.

  They say it takes time to meet people.

  Do you agree? Sleep with your friend.

  Disagree? Cut him off. Put it in the oven.

  I’VE BEEN WAITING ALL NIGHT

  I reckon you were asleep with your girl

  before the phone rang. Make something up.

  I’ve been waiting all night to tell you

  about the couple in post-War France,

  the woman fresh in her grave

  and the man who didn’t like his mistress dead,

  no sir, and so exhumed her, to the dismay

  of his wife, who had him arrested

  for the stink he made.

  She was reburied, returned to the dead.

  After jail, he dug her up to fuck again.

  Attached suction cups and crafted

  a wig from a broom. You can go now.

  I’m more in the mood than you’re used to.

  CAFÉ LOOP

  She’s had it easy, you know. I knew her

  from FSU, back before she was disabled.

  I mean she was disabled but she didn’t

  write like it. Did she talk like it?

  Do you know what it is exactly?

  She used to wear these long dresses

  to cover it up. She had a poem

  in The Atlantic. Yes, I’ll take water.

  Me too. With a slice of lemon.

  It must be nice to have The Atlantic.

  Oh, she’s had it easy all right.

  She should come out and state

  the disability. She actually is very

  dishonest. I met her once at AWP.

  Tiny thing. Limps a little. I mean not

  really noticeable. What will you have?

  I can’t decide. How can she write

  like she’s writing for the whole group?

  I mean really. It’s kind of disgusting.

  It’s kind of offensive. It’s kind of

  a commodification of the subaltern

  identity. Should we have wine?

  Let’s have something light. It makes

  you wonder how she lives with herself.

  I wouldn’t mind. I would commodify

  and run. She’s had it easy.

  I can’t stand political poetry.

  She never writes about it critically.

  If it really concerns her, she should

  just write an article or something.

  I heard she’s not that smart. My friend

  was in class with her and he said

  actually she’s not that smart.

  I believe it. I mean the kind of language

  she uses, so simple, elementary.

  My friend said she actually believes

  her poems have speakers. Oh, that’s rich.

  I’m sorry but if the book is called

  amputee and you’re an amputee

  then you are the speaker.

  So New Criticism. Really I don’t like

  her work at all. I find it lacking.

  HOW TO TREAT FLOWERS

  Take the flowers directly home. Make no sloppy small talk with women biting into oranges on park benches. Do not leave the flowers in the car, not even if you are the kind of guy who has a sun visor and dark-tinted windows. You must never leave the flowers in the car.

  *

  If the flowers are carnations—why? Wasn’t she worth roses? Wasn’t there a summer bouquet with a few sprigs of baby’s breath, one or two roses and maybe a lily? You cheapskate. Why are you such a cheapskate?

  *

  Leave the flowers on the kitchen table, in their clear plastic wrap, beside the blender. She will cut the plastic wrap with her favorite pair of white-handled scissors.

  *

  You buy the flowers. She cuts the stems, runs water warm, sprinkles sugar in the water, because somewhere, if you heard her correctly, somewhere before you (you forgot there was a before you) another man told her to put the flowers in sugar water.

  *

  None of this will happen in time. C. S. Lewis swears all of time is written on an 8 × 11 piece of paper and the paper is God. You don’t believe in God, but . . . If time is written on an 8 × 11 piece of paper, all of time, if that’s true, then you are simultaneously buying flowers, taking the woman from the park bench in your mouth and making love to your girlfriend while she watches a stranger pee into your commode. It is, after all, your commode. Where is your rage?

  *

  I notice you, noticing you, nostalgic for the time before you, which is her time not yours, which you would like for yours, which you would like to pocket along with the change from the ten dollar bill, since the flowers were only five, since you bought carnations, roses were ten, and though you had the ten dollar bill, you wanted something (Spinoza and others agree: “Desire is the essence of man”), a beverage, which requires going into the bar, asking the woman with the orange if she will join you in the bar. Isn’t she hot in this heat? She must be.

  *

  We are getting stale. I call us stale. I can feel us getting stale and it sickens me.

  More.

  You sicken me.

  More.

  I took the flowers and I cut the stems off the flowers. I cut the stems off the flowers because you wanted me to do it. You urged me to cut the stems off the flowers and I do not regret one bit of it. Not even in the morning.

  *

  The problem with flowers and buying them is implicit in the exchange of, yes, that ten dollar bill. Times you have bartered flowers for sex? Times you have tried to barter flowers for sex? People in the world who believe in time? Time it will take for the woman biting into the orange to look up and notice your flowers?

  *

  Spinoza says, “One and the same thing can at the same time be good, bad and indifferent.” The same thing, at the same time, look up, oranges are the essence of man, biting into them is the essence of man, look up, look up. Aren’t you hot? In this heat, you must be.

  AFFAIRS

  Affairs are amply appreciated by contemporary critics under the name of discontinuity. Affairs come into their own when we translate the whole question from structure to behavior. Affairs disappear altogether. Many affairs remain unabsorbed. The concept of the affair gives another dimension to the impact of epiphanies. Affairs in general may be analyzed according to whatever distinctions one uses in analyzing. Affairs are associated with shortness. Final affairs are an obstacle to artistic comprehension caused by the seemingly premature placing of the end. Such affairs exist in every perception that one’s tentative comprehension is not complete. Such affairs depend on the convention that “every thing counts.” Affairs challenge us at a more fundamental level. Affairs are never completely resolved. Final affairs are the most extreme.

  POE
M FOR HIS GIRL

  I’ll tell you which panties

  look good on you

  psychedelic plaid

  with ruffles on the waist

  patriotic polka dot

  the whale print is very

  what’s his name again?

  Those would look good on you

  those too, those also

  I could see you

  wearing those in his truck

  out past the Esso station

  to the field party