Read More: A Brief Q&A with Anthony Immergluck
Green Couch
First, a word about the couch,
with its fiddlehead arms
and lichen upholstery:
It appeared to us years ago,
piecemeal by a dumpster,
and we scurried it like worker ants
up a narrow, dusty stairwell.
There is a Godly satisfaction
in the clicking of wooden slats
and a cushion skating into place.
And you hope your guests won’t notice
that the thing can come apart.
Like a galleon in a glass bottle,
you hope it looks like magic.
Know that the Green Couch
has unburdened dozens,
drunken or in transit or in crisis,
of their wakeful encumbrances.
And know that it is jeweled with fluids –
soy sauce and Cotes du Rhone
and bloody noses and so much worse.
It is a second place to occupy
should I become unlovable,
which I often do after too
much time in too little space.
Like a bill into a wallet,
I slip into the tatty divot
that tired backs have bored.
Blades of midday sun, always
the smell of something burning.
This couch is a long, green silence
shared between people in love.
And you should hear the song it sings
when both our weights are lain upon it.
The Old House
I am back in the old house,
where I kissed no girls
and kissed no boys,
then kissed them all at once,
in a sort of reaping motion,
‘round one spun bottle
drained of its Triple-Sec.
I am back in the old house,
where I loved the dog
who bit my mother often.
And where a starling found
a laceration in the drywall
and died behind my bed.
I am back in that house.
Where I hid my weed
in a collapsible Death Star
the size of a softball.
I am back in the yard
where every passing ant
was a chance to prove
my mercy or wrath.
And I threatened to run
away forever, which is
a child’s way of saying
something unspeakable.
I am back in the old house,
fist-marks in the drywall,
Hoisting plastic crates
heavy with winter purses
and Phillips Heads gone sticky.
There are photographs
of prehistoric aunts
and photocopied terms
of the divorce.
I am back in the old house,
poltergeisted by apologies.
Gremlins of resentment
in the gears of the recliner.
I am back in this pillared maze
where we suffered and rejoiced.
Where I practiced Foxy Lady
for weeks until, my God,
I thought I really had it.
Subscribers can read all our publications by logging in. |
The New House
Could this room, this massive room
with the undulant hardwood
and dubious electric,
Could this be the altar upon which
hors d’oeuvres are sacrificed?
Could this room hold all our love
and all the thrumming pulses
of all the distant friends […]
Subscribers can read the full version by logging in. |
In Quarantine
I am ashamed of how afraid I am.
I am gluttonous in my fortunes.
But what is love and the home
one grouts about its borders
If not a kind of doomsday bunker?
Are we not always shopping
for a place to die?
I’ve been struggling to breathe,
So I’ve deleted all my porn
and the poems I wrote in anger.
I have not found God.
I’ve abandoned my diet.
Outside there are crickets, a spatter
of cardinals, the neighborhood
labs in all their drooling wisdom.
Inside we have ridden the pendulum
of bickering and forgiveness and we’ve
come out twisted like creeping vines,
hypnotized, bound by the understory.
We have been hunching over jigsaws
and sunning ourselves in Doctor Who.
And like the Tardis, this apartment
is bigger on the inside. Rooms
are the dreams of rooms.
Subscribers can read all our publications by logging in. |
___________________________________
Anthony Immergluck is a poet, publishing professional, and musician with an MFA in Poetry from New York University – Paris. Some of his recent work has been published in TriQuarterly, Beloit Poetry Review, Tahoma Literary Review, Narrative, and Nimrod. Originally from Chicago, he now lives in Madison, Wisconsin. More of his work can be found at anthonyimmergluck.com.
Read More: A Brief Q&A with Anthony Immergluck