Standard contrivances

Some of the women are changing into vegetables. Meanwhile, some of the men
Remind us of everyday creatures described in the songbook. While I propose

You can read me lines from The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry. Serious material
Is too much for the genre of the short story but you insist on the exact opposite

And then even that changes. I’m uncertain. Though you are a woman, you are not
What I mean when I say you are a woman. I propose while you’re also proposing,

And that’s what people do nowadays. Philosophies start from nothing but the desire
To be like animals. And the irony is, all of us are already exactly like the animals.

You are a woman and I am changing. Not everything has to be specifically mental.
There are chests full of the rest of the work. Quotations, paraphrases and finally

Catchphrases. What were you telling me about? I was assembling furniture, pondering
The nominees. Have you ever slept a night inside a log cabin? It’s drafty in the dark.

Tell me another sentence, please? Misunderstandings are the wellspring of romance
In the modern. Don’t you know that what I’m telling you is all adrift in the subtext?

And the craziest part of it is, I never wanted to be a veterinarian. I was in good spirits
Those years before allergies. The secret to giving shots is, giving shots doesn’t hurt.

That’s how to recognize a genuine proposition. One time the job fair came through
And we made up choreography for funerals. The women were beside themselves,

Keening like actresses. Here they parade in character. And they are changing but you
Aren’t. What’s that about, the will? I changed into pajamas when it was still light out

And before I knew it, dinner was served on a table by the lambskin rug. Conversation
Kept returning to the same old obsessions. A vase between us, bouquet of roses.

I was wiggling my toes. Some of this is easier to remember. This scrub. Novelties
Were in the fur. Listen carefully. People have thought about this for a long time.





Thinguage

Comes a confirmation

At the edges no time for sorrow

I burned myself but it’s better now

The onion sprouted in the compost

Who is rooting

Says the man whose shirt matches the fog

Every time I think of it I get older

Give me a second

This requires logic or if not logic, luck

There’s a silliness there

Sheep mounting the silage

Clouds are burning off, or will

I don’t mean literally

Read it back to me, to make sure












Jared White grew up near Boston and is currently living in Brooklyn, New York. His poems have appeared in such journals as Barrow Street, Fugue, Harp and Altar, The Modern Review and Sawbuck; they are forthcoming in Fulcrum, LVNG and elsewhere. A chapbook of his poems, Yellowcake, will appear in the forthcoming debut issue of Narwhal from Cannibal Books. He blogs from time to time about poems and culture at jaredswhite.blogspot.com






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