Notes On A Candy Cane Tree

What did I think about before you touched my thigh? Let me say this: I’m going to touch you until my fingers fall off. If my fingers don’t fall off, I will hold your hand even if it’s sweaty. And let me say this: You are lovelier than clouds that look like lovely things. I have only loved a few times and the last time was when you rubbed my neck under the monkey bars. We weren’t much younger than we are now. I still have the same haircut. You still have only one dimple. It’s on your left cheek and it looks like you fell on a pebble. I love that it looks like you fell on a pebble. Let me say this: You taste like candy canes. There was a candy cane tree in my old neighborhood. My neighbor hung candy canes on the branches of the willow and I snatched them in the middle of the night. It was December when I rode my bike the quickest, like I was going somewhere to meet you. I like you more than the candy cane tree. Let me say this: I am uncomfortable in my own skin, so I hold your face. I hold your face and your hips but mostly your face. You have a lovely face. Let me say this: I love you like monsters like scaring little kids. I make a list of words I can use to diagram your body: petite, mellifluous, comely, milk, necessary. Please, forgive the humming; you see I rarely taste candy canes in March. When I don’t taste you I taste sweat. Not good sweat, mind you, sweaty sweat from the men’s locker room. Sometimes I taste pizza, but that’s only because I loved pizza first. Let me say this: My love for pizza was fleeting. I was young and naive and thought that extra toppings meant something. These are fine days because they end with you. Let me just say this: I’m going to kiss you until my lips fall off. If my lips don’t fall off, I will kiss up your spine until I run out of spine. Then I’ll start over.

Gregory Sherl.

Memoir

Girl #3 says Be my boyfriend? On top of me her breath smells like nothing. I look at the remote control. I look at the ceiling fan, it’s spinning. I imagine cold against her back. There is always sweat on her brow when we kiss. Girl #1 has made her Facebook page private. I am quiet when she doesn’t call. I am always quiet. Girl #4 takes Xanax on my doorstep. When I come home I see her socks first. We smoke cigarettes all over Tallahassee. After Art Brut at Club Downunder, I sit in my tub with the showerhead spraying until my skin is old. The water feels stale. This is one of seven times I am ready to die. Before that I was in a cemetery with Cecilia. I thought about kissing her only once. There is a poem in everything her neck might’ve said, but I didn’t get close enough to find out. Girl #6 pulls my hair when she comes. She is always on top or bent over. There is an impression of her face in the pillow when we finish. I haven’t met Girl #7 yet, thank God. When I do she will punch walls when I am away. I will watch most of her skin leave her, but fuck if she won’t rebuild my heart on a canvas. Girl #3 fucks Dan because I tell her to. Dan buys me cigarettes so I don’t care. Girl #3 gives me two Bukowski paperbacks, still tries to sit next to me at the movies. She says It’s over, he does too much coke. I think about Girl #1 while most girls talk. There are so many miles between us I am dizzy. If she is dizzy, I don’t know. She is contemplating marrying a boy who never made her come. I am contemplating marrying a bottle of Vicodin, a pack of Turkish Silvers, a patch of skin that won’t bruise. At All Saints Café a girl says I like your computer. I say You can scratch your keys across it and your ears will hurt. Before she leaves she gives me her number written on a torn piece of paper. I call her a month later and we bake a Funfetti cake. We sit on my couch for an hour and I think about kissing her 19 times. Her jeans are dark. I touch her stomach. Her lips are just enough red but I don’t kiss her because she’s not Girl #1. Tomorrow, I don’t even know. Next week, I can’t imagine. Of Montreal plays at Club Downunder. Kevin Barnes comes out in a wedding dress. He says Marry me, Tallahassee and everyone says Fuck yeah and then there are good songs. I am wearing a knit beanie with a bill. Girl #3 shows up late and I don’t know what to focus on: her hips or the cigarettes I’m fingering in my jean pocket or Kevin Barnes singing Let’s pretend we’re in Antarctica, let’s pretend we don’t exist. A year later I see Of Montreal at The Moon. Before the set I take three Percocet in the smoking room. I am not able to move till the encore. Girl #4 stands next to me but I don’t fuck her after the show. I don’t even touch her wrist even though it’s a soft wrist and she keeps it close to me. After, we go to All Saints Café and drink black coffee. I swallow pills from her fingers. I am too stoned to play Scrabble so we draw each other licking things. I draw her doing a handstand in a dumpster. She draws me between her legs. Amanda comes back from NYU. In my car, she says I love you. You know that, right? She runs her hand through my hair and everything burns. So many minutes I’ve spent trying to sleep. This is the only time Amanda touches me. There’s a couch and it’s clean and that’s all I want, but right now Girl #5 is telling me to fuck her on her balcony. There are fireworks and she’s in heels. Her dress is pushed up to her waist. Cars honk. I am only slightly hard.

Gregory Sherl

Sexy Sexy

Because I live in south Florida I store cans of black beans and gallons
of water in my closet in preparation for hurricane season.
I throw a hurricane party in January. You’re my only guest.
We play Marco Polo in bed. The sheets are wet like the roof caved in.
There’s a million of me in you. You try to count me as I taste the sweat
on the back of your neck. I call you Sexy Sexy, and we do everything twice.
After, still sweating, we drink Crystal Light out of plastic water bottles.
We discuss the pros and cons of vasectomies. It’s not invasive you say.
I wrap the bedsheet around my waist. Minor surgery you say.
You slur the word surgery, like it’s a garnish on a dish you just prepared.
I eat your hair until you agree to no longer talk about vasectomies.
We agree to have children someday, and that they will be beautiful even if they’re not.
As I watch your eyes grow heavy like soggy clothes, I tell you When I grow up
I’m going to be a famous writer. When I’m famous I’ll sign autographs
on Etch-A-Sketches. I’ll write poems about writing other poems,
so other poets will get me. You open your eyes long enough to tell me
that when you grow up, you’re going to be a steamboat operator.
Your pores can never be too clean you say.
I say I like your pores just fine. I say Your pores are tops.
I kiss you with my whole mouth, and you fall asleep next to my molars.
In the morning, we eat french toast with powdered sugar. I wear the sugar
like a mustache. You wear earmuffs and pretend we’re in a silent movie.
I mouth Olive juice, but I really do love you.
This is an awesome hurricane party you say, but it comes out as a yell
because you can’t gauge your own volume with the earmuffs on.
You yell I want to make something cute with you.
I say Let me kiss the insides of your arms.
You have no idea what I just said, but you like the way I smile.

Gregory Sherl

Please Move to Vermont and Break My Heart

I am writing a book on how to write a book so I can learn how to properly explain why you look better with the lights on. I listen to a song but it doesn’t mention your name so I stop listening to the song. Your heart is noise pop. White noise is ghosts missing the streamers that fall from your ears while you sing in the car. Vermont is not far if you are already in Vermont. My cat looks at me and then walks away. He is named either after a famous musician or a body of water. There are so many words I refuse to learn how to spell. Still, I spell check your thighs after I bend you over my desk. I spell check the inside of your left ear while you bite yourself on the kitchen table. Prostrate. Today I am writing in grunts, I am playing in fonts. My chest hair is size 44 Comic Sans. My eyebrows are whittled away before I leave the mall. I have sat under the same sun as you for 25 years. Sometimes I have walked under the same sun as you. Once, I played tennis under the same sun as you. Repetition sun. Staccato sun. Wrinkled sun. I tell your skin that covers your clavicle We’ve got at least 53 more years of holding hands on a bench under the same sun. The sequel to this poem is John Cusack holding a boombox over his head under barely any sun. Fact: I want to kiss your nose even when I’m not inside you.

Gregory Sherl

Woah.

After Love
Maxine Kumin

Afterward, the compromise.
Bodies resume their boundaries.
 
These legs, for instance, mine.
Your arms take you back in.
 
Spoons of our fingers, lips
admit their ownership.
 
The bedding yawns, a door
blows aimlessly ajar
 
and overhead, a plane
singsongs coming down.
 
Nothing is changed, except
there was a moment when
 
the wolf, the mongering wolf
who stands outside the self
 
lay lightly down, and slept.

from Selected Poems, 1960-1990. Copyright © 1970 by Maxine Kumin. Reprinted by permission of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

Alicante 

Une orange sur la table
Ta robe sur le tapis
Et toi dans mon lit
Doux présent du présent
Fraîcheur de la nuit
Chaleur de ma vie