No Negligee
It should not matter at 30 which doors
inside this tiny shack remain ajar, but
tonight, it does. In the closet’s sleeve
hangs one orange half-eye, aglow. It x-rays
my innards, a monster. Knees to chest,
covered to chin, like a skittish hare, I tremble.
It has come to take my brows, my voice.
It has come curious as a teenage boy,
searching for a crotch of –
No pleather, tassels, or hard lace will be found
in that decaying, windowless extension
of this room, you beast. No negligee.
I feel you stir the puddles of supposed
slumber, gather upon the duck head
linens, your lengthened limb pursuing
the silk that covers the hollow of my throat.
Gasping, I sound syllables backwards,
fighting the neglect to inhale absent,
lackluster light, ravaging right hand
This is somewhat a collaborative improv (I think). I felt really inspired by many of York's poems content (closets, clothing, uncertainty, rape), so I decided to give my own similar ideas a go. Suggestions?
While this draft is fabulously full of rich language and imagery, I’m still not quite sure what’s going on. I get lost in the wordplay so hard, that by the time I got to the end on my third readthrough, I still wasn’t sure where I was or with whom. When you next draft on this one, I think you might consider the first sentence on itself. I stopped and questioned why there. Why should it not matter at thirty, and why does it matter in this instance? I feel as though that’s the crux of the piece right there, the driving issue of this one draft, yet I could not grasp it on my readthroughs.
ReplyDeleteSome local stuff to sort through – I think the word “crotch” works where you have it, but I don’t know if you should keep it. Maybe something just as punchy but a little less, well. A little less “crotch.” I have no idea how else to put that. What, exactly, are “duck head” linens? Do you mean the brand “duckhead”? If so, what do they look like?