MARGERY ASKED FOR THIS POEM

You put the knife to the salamander’s tail

and it wasn’t a symbol.

You demanded something real

and animals are nothing if not that.

Animals trying to get away

are nothing if not that.

THE STORIES I TELL DO NOT HAVE ENDINGS

because clouds, deserts, and viruses do not end,

and do not understand that all we humans can do

is squeal in our kitchens at the sight of the real survivors,

the cockroaches which can live for three years on a raisin.

Time for them goes so slowly. “As for me,” said my grandmother

who was tired of us all. But we had tired of her years before.

I have no words for people who don’t interest me,

and it’s one fault I’m proud of. A teacher told me that women

should never apologize, and that weakness wears a kind face.

I have to stay interested in myself, though, or I will not stick around.

If I can’t tell myself stories, someone else will have to do it,

or I will never get to sleep. For sleep is a gift from God that the wicked

have to steal while God is off looking for the wrapping paper.

Not only the righteous have a strong sense of entitlement.

But, in being righteous, the holy men grow so beautiful

under their burlap. And the fact that no-one can see their radiance

is of no concern to those who think the whole world is mistaken.

Once I thought I wanted to be a peacemaker, but then I saw

I hadn’t thought things through very well. For I love

how a sharp piece of metal feels in my hand and the peacemakers

do not get to sweat enough. And a cry of anger can so often

sound amorous and vice-versa. See how I’m using Latin

to compensate for my lack of democratic civility? See how

I use the rhythms of multisyllabics to calm my hissing nerves?

When she died, my grandmother’s nerves shrieked

and jumped towards me like fleas. My birthright is a painted doll

and a stomach full of night-crawlers. I shouldn’t feel

so un-welcomed here, the world should see that I’m one of her own:

I was born an animal, but my parents would not let me stay that way.

It is because I loved my parents that I learned not to howl.

Howling would have meant I wanted them to do something about it.

And they might have pitied me, but pity is only maintained at a distance.

And if I were to have a child it would be only because I want to study

the same person for 18 years. For I’m never able to get to know someone

before they get up and interrupt my note-taking. But without taking

notes, I would forget these words and would have to shriek

and howl in my fur, and then the peacemakers would approach me.