Brief blue stars
Favorite Things
One day, the most mundane thing will be my favorite.
An ordinary black stocking, for example, might flush
in red birds from my bronze cheeks upon finding it
faithfully tumbling in the dryer, not missing at all.
Right now my favorite thing is a line from a poem
by Dorianne Laux about a 12-year old girl, the static
electricity in her socks spawning “brief blue stars.”
Now my favorite thing is Alex reading me good poetry.
The stories he tells about telling the husbands of married
women he has a crush on them, the merits of that disarming
word discussed at some length under patiently laundered
morning sun, barely two days out from my father’s funeral.
And the poems are naked, sensual, filled with the ether
of irony, shot through with the sorry blood of purification
wrung out from the tender bells of breasts we have pealed
by the clappers of our teeth in more torn and tender times.
All these are my favorite things.
Until they’re not.
An ordinary black stocking, for example, might flush
in red birds from my bronze cheeks upon finding it
faithfully tumbling in the dryer, not missing at all.
Right now my favorite thing is a line from a poem
by Dorianne Laux about a 12-year old girl, the static
electricity in her socks spawning “brief blue stars.”
Now my favorite thing is Alex reading me good poetry.
The stories he tells about telling the husbands of married
women he has a crush on them, the merits of that disarming
word discussed at some length under patiently laundered
morning sun, barely two days out from my father’s funeral.
And the poems are naked, sensual, filled with the ether
of irony, shot through with the sorry blood of purification
wrung out from the tender bells of breasts we have pealed
by the clappers of our teeth in more torn and tender times.
All these are my favorite things.
Until they’re not.
Joseph Gallo
June 6, 2005
June 6, 2005
post-time 5:25 PM
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