Three Poems

 

 

by Robyn Alter Bielawa

 

 

 

December 19:

The Questions

 

 

Tomatoes everywhere. 

What are your thoughts on the nightshade?

Acid.  Cocktail with lemon.

Did you know right away?

I used to dream entirely in German.

How do you diagnose a flowering plant?

No skin.  Like eyeballs.  Eat eggs for cash.

And what of the paneling?

Clean.  Look to the right of the door.

What do you see?

Horror film.  Juice bleeding from walls.

Origination? 

Cat litter.  Brown rug.  So worn it hurts. 

What do you picture all day?

Dead birds.  Tossed over guardrail.  Bridge in water.

Which disruption is this?

I have no right to sit in that chair.

Then what should you be doing?

Four walls.  Out for coffee.

What are you thinking right now?

Waiting for the bomb.  Skyscraper.

The connection?

Like a movie.  Drained from concrete. 

 

 

 

 

Dear Doctor Loomis:

 

 

I have trouble looking at Russians. 

It was a bad year for the mustache. 

Orange does not equal funny.

I don’t care who your father was, just read.

I took an iron to my wrist, and you missed it.

We could have examined my vulnerability

to cotton.  Flowers lead to unhealthy attachments. 

Classical music is a filter for silence. 

How many times are you going to ask me

to rate my susceptibility?

I am afflicted, I know that.

We never even got to argue. 

I read about how your chest

almost got crushed.

Sometimes, I wish it did. 

I miss you.

I still wear pink.

 

 

 

 

Week One

 

 

There are telephones

in the Republic, he  said.

Maybe.  But I am finished

with daylight. 

 

 

There is no difference

between the seasons.

Early winter.

I don’t care much

for New York. 

 

 

I think about scraping

chocolate from the tile.

It has been there

for seven days.

I think about it some more.

 

 

I leave my wallet home,

and tell you to fuck off.

Outside, object relations

is a thing of the past. 

 

I am weak in German.

She asks me about my

world view.  Something

about books on gender

and class. 

 

 

I lament, and count

to six-hundred repeatedly. 

You believe that death

is something that goes

away in the morning.

Comfortable with birds

in the dark.  Dreams,

entirely in red.