Two poems by MATTHEW DICKMAN
Black Ice
All night it felt like I was
in your room,
the French doors opened out
onto the porch, the table
there, the yard there and the last
of the flowers there, all night
all I wanted was the vanilla shadow
of your fingers, the dark
candy of your armpits, the light
snow your feet seem to be,
and all night the night was very much
like a ship, though you will
hate the way I say this, a ship
that appears to be both
walking toward the coastline
of your hips, and slowly moving
away, all night
all the water in the world
felt as still as a teacup
wrapped in tissue and placed deep
into a box full of those white
pieces of foam
people call popcorn. This morning
I drank coffee with sugar
which I never do, and kept crying
which is something I tend to do
whenever I think I have
walked into your house
with a Japanese sword and cut you
in half while you slept.
Just thinking of you asleep
makes me want to pull every flower
out of the ground
and throw them onto your bed.
This is a hated world,
I know, and we are fighting the star
riddled, burnt out, sky
of our brains. I keep waking up
in a box made out of black
ice, and sometimes there's your voice
speaking in another language
and sometimes there's nothing,
but always a little fruit hangs
from a tree,
where I have carved my name,
and carved your name,
and carved a little note
out of my arm which always says
I'm sorry and love and sorry
over and over, each letter
spelling out my name, which, in the language
of last night means apologia,
or it means who do you think you are, you
are barely a man. All night
I wanted to sit at your table
and pour out the beer
into little Turkish bowls, and have all
the cuts that make up your body and mine
close up like a tulip in the dark and cooling front yard.
1 The Paris-American
All night it felt like I was
in your room,
the French doors opened out
onto the porch, the table
there, the yard there and the last
of the flowers there, all night
all I wanted was the vanilla shadow
of your fingers, the dark
candy of your armpits, the light
snow your feet seem to be,
and all night the night was very much
like a ship, though you will
hate the way I say this, a ship
that appears to be both
walking toward the coastline
of your hips, and slowly moving
away, all night
all the water in the world
felt as still as a teacup
wrapped in tissue and placed deep
into a box full of those white
pieces of foam
people call popcorn. This morning
I drank coffee with sugar
which I never do, and kept crying
which is something I tend to do
whenever I think I have
walked into your house
with a Japanese sword and cut you
in half while you slept.
Just thinking of you asleep
makes me want to pull every flower
out of the ground
and throw them onto your bed.
This is a hated world,
I know, and we are fighting the star
riddled, burnt out, sky
of our brains. I keep waking up
in a box made out of black
ice, and sometimes there's your voice
speaking in another language
and sometimes there's nothing,
but always a little fruit hangs
from a tree,
where I have carved my name,
and carved your name,
and carved a little note
out of my arm which always says
I'm sorry and love and sorry
over and over, each letter
spelling out my name, which, in the language
of last night means apologia,
or it means who do you think you are, you
are barely a man. All night
I wanted to sit at your table
and pour out the beer
into little Turkish bowls, and have all
the cuts that make up your body and mine
close up like a tulip in the dark and cooling front yard.
1 The Paris-American
Sky
I remember when the sky
was all the rage,
like last night and how it felt
like a bundle of letters
flung into the air
over the apartment
where you and I slept
like two keys in someone's pocket,
the same sky
as this morning but now it's more
like a sheet that's been
lifted like rice over a wedding
party. Jumbo jets
are swimming through the clouds
and you are driving
to California
with your son asleep
in the back, every microcosm
of his body is initialed
with your name, with the sound
and wet mouth of your skin.
I'm getting ready
to walk through this city
for the tenth billion time, getting
ready to be a person
who is not like an empty building,
who is not like an emergency
kit, the swabs and needles,
the antiseptic and Band-Aids,
today I will be the way
I always wanted to be, someone
drinking coffee and being
kind of knowing
the difference between making
love and putting on
his shoes. The way I smile,
with the dental dam
of death clouding up my teeth
is something you always
knew about me, something you liked
a little in the left part of your body
which is the part that has water
and trees, puddles of blood
and planets of organs. I want to know
just what kind of a person
goes to sleep with one name
and wakes up with another, my inner life
has so many passports
I don't think it belongs to any particular
Nation, nor would it be saved
if all out war were to appear over
the hedges like a mother
appearing in the middle of a Mall
where her lost child
has been watching a strange man
do a trick with a quarter,
a pin, and his thick hands. Whenever
you go, I am sawed in half
in front of an audience of one,
before the two boxes of myself
are wheeled back together and I get
to stand up again, and bow, and walk away.
2 The Paris-American
I remember when the sky
was all the rage,
like last night and how it felt
like a bundle of letters
flung into the air
over the apartment
where you and I slept
like two keys in someone's pocket,
the same sky
as this morning but now it's more
like a sheet that's been
lifted like rice over a wedding
party. Jumbo jets
are swimming through the clouds
and you are driving
to California
with your son asleep
in the back, every microcosm
of his body is initialed
with your name, with the sound
and wet mouth of your skin.
I'm getting ready
to walk through this city
for the tenth billion time, getting
ready to be a person
who is not like an empty building,
who is not like an emergency
kit, the swabs and needles,
the antiseptic and Band-Aids,
today I will be the way
I always wanted to be, someone
drinking coffee and being
kind of knowing
the difference between making
love and putting on
his shoes. The way I smile,
with the dental dam
of death clouding up my teeth
is something you always
knew about me, something you liked
a little in the left part of your body
which is the part that has water
and trees, puddles of blood
and planets of organs. I want to know
just what kind of a person
goes to sleep with one name
and wakes up with another, my inner life
has so many passports
I don't think it belongs to any particular
Nation, nor would it be saved
if all out war were to appear over
the hedges like a mother
appearing in the middle of a Mall
where her lost child
has been watching a strange man
do a trick with a quarter,
a pin, and his thick hands. Whenever
you go, I am sawed in half
in front of an audience of one,
before the two boxes of myself
are wheeled back together and I get
to stand up again, and bow, and walk away.
2 The Paris-American
Matthew Dickman is the poetry editor of Tin House and the author of All-American Poem (American Poetry Review/ Copper Canyon Press, 2008) and the recipient of the Honickman First Book Prize, the May Sarton Award from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Kate Tufts Award from Claremont College, the 2009 Oregon Book Award, and two fellowships from Literary Arts of Oregon. He has also received residencies and fellowships from The Michener Center for Writers in Austin, Texas; The Vermont Studio Center; The Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown; and The Lannan Foundation. His poems have appeared in Tin House, McSweeney’s, Ploughshares, and the New Yorker, among others. W.W. Norton & Co. will publish his second book in 2012. He lives and works in Portland, Oregon.