on the spaces we've left for pay phones
i'm going to call you from
the pay phone--
one between the dollar store
& the movie gallery--
the one with the thick
metal umbilical cord connecting
it to the ear drums
of god--
the one
who ate my quarters when
i was 9 but always refused to swallow my
voice-- i want you to hear
me through the pay phone--
i want you to wait for me to call--
make yourself smaller if you
want to hear someone--
we've left spaces for the
pay phones in our life--
at my high school there are
empty nooks scooped out of the
walls where the pay phones
used to wait to accept
prayers & elegies & car rides
home
while the sun was going to
bed early in december--
chewed quarters-- widened their
throats--
& when god grew restless
waiting on a swivel
chair at the local dinner
he would walk to the front
door-- pick up the pay phone
& listen to every phone call
that we ever made--
all at once-- he heard every
iteration of the words
i
love
you
that i have ever taught myself
to make-- each syllable
whirled in the metal rat
tail of the receiver--
this is our tether
to each other's most intimate
conversations--
learn how to hold
each other in a silence--
there's so so few
words
we have to say so many different
things--
there are night when i
forget that only god listens
to pay phones now & these spaces
we have left only to
remind ourselves of all the
ways we have said goodbye--
i walk down to the pay phone
past
the library-- the one next to the
dollar store & the black window
carcass that once was
a movie gallery--
my reflection is ghostly
in the front window & the carpet
inside still has the pattern
of stars printed
in row where there once were aisles
of dvds to rent--
there is only a metal rectangle
where the pay phone was
but i pretend to insert a quarter--
press the phone to my ear
& there i am-- the 9 year old
girl calling for a ride home--
there i am the lover of
late night dial tones & strumming
the telephone wires who knit
a hair net for the sky--
there i am waiting for
you to call me back
& find a new way to tell me that
you love me-- only for it
to disappear-- only to live
on in a swarm of our words
lurking in the spaces we've left
for pay phones--
check your pockets full of
quarters--
you never know when you might
find a place to stop
& listen to all the things
we ever said to each other--
all the
i
love
yous
& goodbyes-- we leave
forever waiting on the
other side of a pay phone--
pick when i call
i'll we waiting for a ride home--
Uncategorized
06/07
the hall of fish & how i learned to swim carve gills & throw me back into the ocean-- paint my face with orange & blue & white stripes up my sides-- we were made of wood so we could float-- this is how my father carried me to my room at night-- a beer in one hand in a back stroke down a yellow painted ocean-- i grew up swimming down the hall of fish-- my father's collection of carved wooden fishes from an artist at the farmer's market up the street-- a man who kept everyone's gills in a trailer-- i met him only once but i can't remember his face-- for some reason i recall him as a sea otter-- slicked back hair & black snout-- other times he has a forehead like a mahi-mahi-- mouth open to the wind through the market grove-- a zephyr between the tents of vendors-- the art of swimming is something that takes practice-- my father would pick me up & we would open the green door from the sun room-- carve our wooden gills & wriggle between the wooden bodies hanging on the walls all the way down to my room-- an octopus garden-- the whistle of a hinge-- our god had the hands of a fish carver living out of a trailer of his children-- you with the flounder body-- & you with red lobster faces-- carpet into sand & night into abyss-- this hallway cuts itself deep into the hull of the house-- a trench-- a memorial to the idea of being taught again how to swim-- these legs into fin-- my father again a fish market trader-- finding a new place on the wall to hide a child-- our ocean was a yellow one-- our bodies destined to float-- our hallway wore darkness like the belly of a stone-- on our back we coasted to our beds-- dreamed of a god with a pocket knife & a hunk of wood in the market groove where the wind pulled the branches of the willow trees like fish tails-- read me a story about swimming backwards-- carry me again father like you would a beer bottle-- carve my gills for me-- let's practice swimming in the hall--
06/06
elevator
i know where
to move to-- it's not
so much a choice as it is
a calling--
i piled all my belongings
on the curb next to the old
stone-eyed televisions &
sunken cheeked couches--
drowsy from rain & sun--
you asked me how we can take
so long to own so many things--
i'm going to take a bus
to the city & find the biggest
building--
i'll put on a suite
& a fedora with a red feather
or maybe a tight polka dot
dress & glasses on the tip
of my nose-- i could become
anyone there & live where
everyone is going
& no one is stopping-- even me--
i'm getting taller & taller
& challenging the sky scraper
next to me to stretch herself
until her head hits the moon--
i'm the witnesses to the
people who enter
the elevator-- morning
chews metal doors--
we blink like an amphibian--
they look down at
their shoes to check
if they're still touching
ground-- we fly--
a man with a jack russel
terrier eats a fist
of lays potato chips
& a woman with a bunch
of light bulbs piled high
in a card board box checks
her watch-- we go
up-- we go up
we go up
we go up
i tell them farewell
on their floors & they wonder
where i'm getting off
& i grin to myself
because what they don't know
is that i live here now
in the corner of the elevator
in suspension of time
in the teeth of the machine
the sensation of falling
is hard to recreate
we go down
we fall
we go deeper
we fall farther
than the elevator intended--
i came her to extend
our pathway--
when no one is looking
i add buttons for floors--
-1, -2, -3
go deeper with me i'm taking
you with me--
you could move to the
elevator too-- we'll
make a city on the curb
where our lives used to be
we go higher
we go high
open up in a tangle-hair
sky-- this is above the
sky's mouth-- this is where we
stop moving--
this is the floor where only
i got off--
everyone else had a place to take
their umbrellas
& the woman with the box full
of light bulbs has a lamp
to come home to
& the man with the jack russel
has a chair to catch him--
when i open the doors
there is only sky
you warned me
not to live like
this
instead i get off on
only the second
floor with a red-haired lady
clutching
a stack of magazines to her chest--
i want to ask her if she'll read them--
i go into an empty cubicle
that isn't my own & look out the
window & think how
much taller i have been
& i regret only momentarily
the passing of the cities i
have owned-- scooped off
a curb
we can disappear so so
quietly-- like the
door of the elevator
gliding shut
this is where i get off--
06/05
these sand castle bodies, water fountain lakes & instructions for my burial-- god builds us like sand castles-- gets down on his knees-- pockets full of twig & acorn-- he points: this is the draw bridge-- the mote-- the look out tower & the flag made from a maple leaf-- i spent a childhood wearing sand in between my toes from the pit at the park where the hornets nested in the rafters & the purple dinosaur ate mulch from my hand-- when i die i want to be buried next to my lost shovel & plastic brontosaurus somewhere at the bottom of the sand box at the park-- i used to want to be cremated but i want to come back & find all the lost toys buried somewhere underneath another collapsed fortress-- these bodies these bodies as strong as sand-- take a bucket of water fountain & pour us a lake-- wet sand to build the walls-- now you know what it's like to feel sturdy-- i used to want to be cremated so someone could open their hand & all of me would blow away-- a playground so much about returning & leaving-- i once made my mother promise before we went home for dinner that my castle would be there the same as i left it when we would come back the next day-- i took a stick & wrote Please Do Not Destroy in the sand-- i lingered only for a moment before putting on my socks & shoes-- it was of course gone along with my petition & in the background the tall swings shuttered with the weight of ghost children's bodies telling their friends to push them higher & higher & higher at night we bury ourselves in the sandbox & wait for everyone to return-- this is our homecoming-- this is where we lost shovels-- this is where the water fountain becomes a lake & children become the ones who always knew how to build castles-- when i die build me a sandcastle body-- let the rain & the wind erase me-- write my name in the sand with a nice stick & come back the next day to make sure i was eaten like a handful of mulch in the mouth of a purple dinosaur--
06/04
smaller
we became increasingly fascinated
with the art of making things smaller--
1.
we all get microscopes
at some point--
mine was back when we lived
on main street next to
the park--
i dove into
the wings of house flies
from the black eye piece--
each fiber a back country
road with corn husk eye lashes--
everything small is so so
vast--
2.
when i was 12
my neighbor, my younger brother, &
i made after school
together-- stood
on the tree stumps
in the front yard &
made believe we were taller--
traced the rings to remember
every winter the trees
had seen-- each go around
the fiber of a fly wing--
there we perched on top of
the obelisks of our childhood--
there the telephone poles lurched
to keep up with the increasing
weight of the sky over us--
this is how you close
your eyes & teach everything
else to shrink--
this is when you feel naked
as a microscope slide--
i followed my own veins into
the corn--
3.
at school
girls got older--
as is inevitable--
got lost in the hair
of park trees-- hung upside down--
kissed each other to
practice for boys--
it is nearly impossible to
remember the first person
you
fall in love with
as anything more than a
telephone pole to prop up
an edge of the sun set--
4.
there is a place
in my home town where you can
stand & look out over the high ways
& see everywhere
you had walked
5.
i have been there twice
6.
there is a cemetery
in my hometown prickly
on the back of hill out behind
the church were most of us
were once girl scouts--
4.
the first time i looked at the
whole town it was
my neighbor, my brother, &
i & it created the sensation of
falling--
this might be my favorite memory
of considering death--
the cars rushed
on the highway at the foot
of the lookout far below &
if you closed your eyes you
could pretend they were a river
ready to catch you--
5.
i have been there twice--
4.
dark the town blurs into
a crop of stars--
my best friend & i leaned up
against the hood
of my mother's blue station wagon--
listen to the ocean at
the foot of the hill--
we didn't say anything profound
& we didn't stay there very long
but if i could go
back i would tell him i loved him
enough to make a mountain--
i would tell him that sometimes
love makes us feel
smaller--
6.
there is a cemetery
on the back of hill--
a thick torso tree
reaches up to greedily grab
at the moon like an empty saucer--
6.
the tree we all kissed under
7.
the blood moon
made us all climb the graveyard--
it was all of us
who had ever become small together--
my neighbor-- those girls--
my best friend who is so small
now that i haven't seen him
in years--
we don't move in the memory--
we don't get older--
we roll in the grass
on the cemetery hill--
we drink honey suckles
at the foot of the hill--
we kiss each other only long
enough to see through
each other into the
threads of our fly wings--
count the winters in our palms--
4.
this is where
we remain small--
5.
i have been there twice
6.
the lips we all shrank beneath
7.
the words we left
in high places--
1.
the microscope we all
became--
1.
the smaller
1.
the smaller
1.
the smaller we became
as we learned the places
we could escape falling--
7.
this is where
the moon is a saucer--
where the trees in the front
yard fall-- where
we walk down the corridors
of insect wings
in an attempt to
become smaller-- where
we are each our own
telephone poll laboring
to sustain the sky
from the ground--
06/03
blueprints. let's go back to another type of beginning-- the one where we walk backwards down the street & watch the houses sink back into the earth-- this is what it looks like to take time backwards-- this is another type of beginning-- one where we sit in a booth at the diner & watch god walk in & order the usual short stack of pancakes with a stout glass of vibrant orange juice-- in it sinks the sun-- he hangs a rain cloud on the coat rack in the vestibule-- god has never been a coffee drinker & from our booth we watch the airplanes land & take off out the window-- like always you fold the napkin ring into a plane-- fly it across the table at me-- in this scene we've yet to be born but we already know we're going to like black & white milkshakes-- we know i'll get the cherry before you-- we know that god is ordering a thin slice of cheesecake & tapping his blue pen on the counter-- he flips over the napkin & begins to scribble & write & we become lines-- mouths-- a gaping eternity in a window & from the counter of a diner on the cusp of nothing god writes the blue print to what would become our home town-- he wrote the clock tower askew in the november wind-- the thrash corn in his breath-- the windowsill i would drop my hair from-- everything set down in blue lines bleeding through a napkin on the counter-- & ever mark is permanent-- he flattens down the wrinkles of his master piece & glances around the diner to make sure no one caught him in another fit of creation-- it's a contagious addiction of his-- the angels joke they should keep him away from pens or soon enough he will have to watch a whole world-- he tells them he's going for a walk when he comes to the diner to write-- it's quiet there other than the faint hum of a radio station lulling songs none of us have had a chance to write yet & the waitress named julie who leans up against the counter & makes herself root beer float with her lunch-- the chef-- veiled in a burst of grease & steam from the grill watches god at work-- he hopes he will have two daughter & that one of them will like his cheesecake & i am there & so are you & this is the beginning no one mentions when we were only the stain of a blue ball-point pen-- a oily smudge from a short stack of pancakes & the planes still take off & we both still want to order black & white milk shakes & when the planes take off they do not yet have a place to land so they collect like wasps swarming in the sky waiting-- waiting waiting to descend--
06/02
it's such a big thing. growing up is such a big thing & in 8th grade we were all busy undoing the love we had drank from juice boxes-- it was a race to become humans-- & it's such a big thing to feel yourself growing so much smaller in such a short period of time-- in 8th grade we read poetry from the holocaust & sometimes a body was a paper clip & it's such a big thing & in 8th grade we took another class on american history where not all the slave-owners were bad & it was still inevitable that the bomb would fall on hiroshima & nagasaki & it's such a big thing-- it's such a big thing to drop a bomb from the ledge of a gray desk-- it's such a big thing to grow up in a cement brick full of pink tongue & tile-- it's such a big thing to undress in the girl's locker room & feel like crawling into the navy blue metal locker to escape the movement of your own legs-- it's such a big thing to become so small in such a short period of time & in 8th grade we all had boyfriends in homeroom even if it only meant sitting across from each other at the gray desks & it's such a big thing to be wanted-- it's such a big thing to be changing-- in 8th grade i took off 50 pounds of my own skin to try to become a smaller human but i only enlarged to the size of the hallway-- the windows could never have held me-- i'm such a big thing now & we thought we would become something but we would become changing & we wore paper clips as an apology to the holocaust poets-- some with empty mouth biographies-- it's such a big thing to figure out how wide we are when we become a word-- in 8th grade i started & stopped a journal at least twelve times-- none it makes any sense but all my poetry is too sad to share with anyone now-- i wrote about brownies & wanting to be a human & wanting to change into something other than a moth & wanting drop myself like a bomb from the window outside the biology room in 8th grade we were so old & we knew everything about the future & becoming a mountain-- in 8th grade we dropped the bomb again-- i snapped a blue lunch tray to trade it for a hallway of a body-- walk through it with be & i'm such a big thing-- i'm such a big thing that i haven't stopped walking through myself i'm such a big thing that i can neglect my one single duty which is to become a human-- in 8th grade i crawled out into my locker-- i folded like a paper clip-- i apologized for everyone who had never been apologized to but it didn't help me become any smaller-- i am i am i am such a big thing--
06/01
"let all things have their places" -ben franklin i'm sitting in the back seat of my own car at a gas station in new jersey-- i've been wondering how many places i am going to have held in my life time-- they're in my pockets-- annoying stones in the heels of my shoes-- what are we but a collection of our legs carried down too many streets named after trees-- chestnut & maple & elm-- knobby with contorted trunk wrists grasping at my ankles-- i pluck off the street signs & sling them over my back so more people take the time to get lost-- there are so many places i can only hold on my tongue-- there was the pizza place we stopped somewhere between here & virginia-- with a name like Maria's or Mario's or Georgio's where we got slices on paper plates & chewed through wobbly stools-- it takes an immeasurable amount of time to leave a place & still keep it dormant inside you-- i've never been good at nostalgia & good bye-- i've become so thin & so wide-- there is still a iteration of my body who spends each day leaning on the railing on the top deck of the dinner cruise we took out on lake erie as children-- her dress is too tight & her leg hair is prickly-- she feels like she's still sinking & i don't try to take that away from her-- it's good to remember being heavy & still-- so you asked me on those wobbly stools if we had to go back to our places-- the ones we knew the street addresses to-- & of course i said 'no' & we ate & we left those lover's bodies seated on wobbly stools where they were made-- there is nothing permanent to a place-- they have long since torn down the park pavilion where i split a twin root beer popsicle with you & let the syrup drip over my fingers-- the ghosts of the bees drill into the ground & the floor becomes angry-- we weren't meant for so much departure-- so many toes to drop like bread crumbs-- i don't want to leave you here but if you wait for me i'll remember you & we can sit here again in the carcass of a vehicle drinking diet soda like arsenic-- like melting popsicles whose spines we used to make our elbows-- this is where we compile a map of ourselves with no street names & no beliefs other than nostalgia-- yes we all have our places-- until we have more & more & more & i fold myself into the patient crease of a slice of pizza & you confess your love to me-- & love lives in places-- in wobbly stool legs & all the unlived forevers we promise when we stand still for too long--
05/31
as i was born in a margin-- my earliest memory is laying akimbo in a margin-- i was conceived before my parents knew each other's shoe sizes-- i was written in the margin poetry of my grandmother who made use of all the white spaces surrounding the crossword puzzle-- it is sunday morning & she drinks coffee & looks out the bay window at the tree that would grow into a shoulder for me to rest on when i would someday visit my great aunt's house wearing a soft body-- she writes lightly--a graphite kiss-- "And my grand daughter will cut her hair" & so i was made-- a notion-- a metaphor-- later my other grandmother would write out the thickness of my legs in a stack of recipes on index cards-- pull this string-bean hair out of the margins. oh here i rest-- here i found the dark comfort of existing only as a poem-- there are nights when i remember my own conception-- i look for a newspaper-- tuck myself in the square of a crossword puzzle-- close the lid on myself until all is quiet & black-- we don't thank our grandmother's enough-- she was a writer they always tell me-- & when i write down your conversations on napkins & pause at the hem of the stairwell to remember the first line of a poem unwritten i remake this body she started with a pencil in a margin-- aren't we all the bodies to emerge from someone else's idea? i look out the same bay window -- i grow thick thighs & plant string bean hair-- i am the grand daughter who fits in small places & likes to feel loneliness fill an empty room-- so i lay with my hair cut around my-- my grandmother with her legs crossed-- holding me-- & calling calling calling me daughter--
05/30
when i am/was a girl when i am/was a girl i had orchids grow behind my ears & i heard you like the sound of wet fingers on the rims of wine glasses-- you couldn't teach me how to keep my fingers from singing-- i un-hemmed my skirts to rip the seams off a sky line set out for sneakers-- were these strings shoe laces or bows? what do you know about wearing toad skin? what do you know about eye-liner? girls laughed as i painted waist lines around my eyes in sapphire & evergreen & bruising plum-- i learned to wash my arm pits with hand soap in the sink-- taught myself not to eat with both hands-- mastered chewing small bites of naked salad-- i have/had always been scared of my boy knees-- that they would give me away-- so i wear/wore leggings & cut myself free of brown pony tails-- i use the old scrunchies for sling shots-- pluck out stars like stones to shoot at my neighbor's windows at night when i get to feel like romeo-- my leg hair has often grown in to a place to escape to-- the rain forest on the walls of my bedroom-- i get to sleep there & no one asks about my boy knees-- i cut patches to plant tomatoes & peaches-- press the pits into the palms of my hands to remind myself how much flesh we can grow back in a day & how many razor rows i have tilled over the prickly hair of my knees in an attempt to make a girl-- have/had been so much like the neck of the orchid-- listening in a soft bell-- drinking softly from my feet-- i had/have watermelon painted nails & smudged mascara on my index fingers-- i have/had acquired a skill of disappearing into leg hair-- they'll find you & ask you what you are & i'll reply i have/had been a girl but i m proudly the ripped hem of the pleated skirt of the skyline-- the soft tongue of an orchid-- & the untamed thicken of my knees
Robin Gow 