Falling Off
Daniel Crocker, July 2009
Ashes like a Cathedral I
knock upon
I made Chili and you
weren’t hungry
Our house is a resultant tone
just for rhyme
I’ll say that I haven’t felt my bones in ages
fat grows when bodies stall
I ask you to eat
but there are the headaches again
Let’s strip this to the bare bones, shall we
I’m ill
The map hanging in the hall
is outdated
but walking my fingers across it tonight
Montana, Wyoming
someplace is warmer
I look for images
but they aren’t found
at this computer
they aren’t found in poems
It’s important that you eat
before you disappear
Sometimes I think
I’ve taken a curtain
in my sleep
and held it over you
made up a few words
and poof
This time the magic is real
you raked the yard
and the leaves are still falling
The tree strips
like a dark bone
full of fist
I noticed a knot in our pine
I thought of Freud
It didn’t even make me horny
My poems for you always turn out like this
snap out like a light
Do either of us
remember what it meant
to be young and in love
In love pays the bills
and takes us to the occasional movie
The risk is gone
We shit in front of each other
and the days stall
like that
And there are nights
when the fingers of my left hand
want to keep walking
And my right hand stops them
with a grasp more violent
than I’ve ever shown you
We are poor and we live
and if all the great poets
refuse to call this love
then they have never seen
you when you’re falling off
My Luck
Daniel Crocker, July 2009
There are so many
beautiful people
in the world
that it sometimes
makes your heart
cry stop
but not a one of them
is at the Wal-Mart
in Deslodge, Missouri
at three
in the morning.
Daniel Crocker is the author of two collections of poetry (People Everyday and Other Poems and Long Live the 2 of Spades) as well as a collection of short stories (Do Not Look Directly Into Me) and a novel (The Cornstalk Man) and several very out of print chapbooks. He is currently a student in the Center for Writers at the University of Southern Mississippi. In the mornings he practices his karate moves on unsuspecting pigeons. He’s also the editor of Trailer Park Quarterly.
