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Their Honeymoon

 

 

lost in kimberlite

diamond and coal

shoveling out

a pan in Arkansas

 

 

where will we go

 

their wedding, ours

 

with the water hose

mud

 

daylight turns to

 

bubblegum,

 

stop your smacking

 

 

another time, another tune

what is love

 

a Santa Claus machine

quests for union

 

what if we never returned

to our wedding, theirs

 

a map in the glovebox

and I never read it

 

 

I got romantic in my usual way

 

the starting spot


that vacant spot

 

we ordered Liebfraumilch

 

you remember that

 

turned on the TV

as if to forgot some presence

 

at the motel in Hot Springs

you had never wanted to sing

you tore your nightgown

 

fretting

 

the spa, the cure

 

we shared a tenderloin

called it dinner

in the moist and heavy breath
all the undress of a knot

 

I bit your earlobe, made you shout


beyond forgot broken felt
glass of smooth cherry lips

 

already pregnant,

you found a snake bit kit in a gift shop

 

I read your signal, I was prescient

 

1) small blade, listed as scalpel

2) tourniquet, not listed as tourniquet, listed something like personal binding rope

3) suction thingee, device, listed as suction thingee, just kidding

4) instructions

 

anecdote?

 

the baby became our best hope

 

or, please don’t tell that Tonto and Lone Ranger joke

 

was there something I forgot to purchase

 

I’m four again, I’m superman

 

until I jump and fail to fly

through the secret side-effect of your lies,

you must admit I'm only five

 

but I was four

 

 

I adored you like the mirror

 

you always said IT was my mother

 

please wake me if you see her car

 

Charlie Brown, Peanuts

my lunchbox, my Thermos

 

about grown, child again

 

raining, the dark

cool as a cave, forgetting

 

home

 

once upon a time, in the car

she hollered

 

the shadow

 

now sitting, waiting

time, the time, in my treehouse

 

no idea

 

my lunch, the peanut butter

the chips

 

an alphabet

 

scratching the tree trunk

with my pocketknife

 

last night

 

the last time my dog Lucy barked

on the front porch, her dog corpse

 

the wound

(or was it the shadow?)

 

a cow must have kicked her

I tried not to cry

 

this morning, milked dry

 

I've decided, school no more—

adventure

 

proved only Symbolic

 

and I missed you

 

this twist, this turn of words

 

 

milk in her purse

 

a hole in the wind,

my longing

 

whose circuit

            the end—

 

sky erupts

 

clock, reverbs, reverbs the clock

 

approximate helicopter

 

 a child missing

 

it’s _______, I’m lost

 

errant

 

breakdown—

 

I went searching

            no promise

 

 

pair of shoes

hands huge with grief

 

the medication was not enough

 

I had to leave for work

the car parked

 

grief

 

 

she says to me

 

a wall made of sea shells

if we had lived by the sea

 

a department store mannequin

if we had lived near the city

 

a dress for the mannequin

if you didn’t have a wife

 

but I had you long enough

 

a clock made of rubber bands

if we had had the supplies

 

the house on paper

the death, the good-bye

 

 

 







Copyright 2008, Jeff Crouch. © This work is protected under the U.S. copyright laws. It may not be reproduced, reprinted, reused, or altered without the expressed written permission of the author.



Jeff Crouch is a writer in Grand Prairie, Texas. Most recently, his writing has appeared in such places as Above Ground Testing, Cautionary Tale, The Cerebral Catalyst, The Delinquent, DOGZPLOT, elimae, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Laika Poetry Journal, Mastodon Dentist, and MG Version 2. His work can also be found at his usual haunts: Literary Chaos and The Houston Literary Review. But Jeff Crouch also enjoys collaborations with other artists, and his follow collaborators have included Cece Chapman, Christopher Woods, Diana Magallon, Jim Leftwich, and Matina Stamatakis. See his artwork at Ascent Aspirations, The Blue Print Review, Events Weekly, moria, and textimagepoem.