from MISTER SKYLIGHT<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Big shot walks up his hat atilt,<\/p>\n
a knife fight in his instep, starts laying it on.
\nThe sky falters into the gutters, lobs a few<\/p>\n
grenades against the barn, flash and pop,
\nand the air smells like cat. Am I a cop?
\nThe thought had sprung up. The DJ is half man<\/p>\n
and the floor looks like meowing. The idiot sweats.<\/p>\n
It chews his haunch. For years now.
\nWhere are the tigers to replace him?<\/p>\n
Outside the Long Beach Airport,
\npigeons have shat white the loudspeakers
\ndeplaning locals roll suitcases by,<\/p>\n
and always someone wears a pink
\ncowboy hat, or a fur from another climate.
\nBeside the boy with interlocking skulls<\/p>\n
raining on his hoodie, the house sparrow
\ngoes for crumbs of stale bagel.
\nThe pilot\u2019s gold epaulets catch on the cab door.<\/p>\n
*<\/p>\n
I then am Portuguese, spying through a glass,<\/p>\n
leafing through maps up sort of the Nile,
\nor am returning, my knapsack
\na jumble of unbearably small jade statues.<\/p>\n
In this pane the gray cloud
\nis my mother in her housecoat.<\/p>\n
Not all craft sink. Moored in a meadow,
\nthe yacht rose above the valley. I found it
\nafter a long time walking alone.<\/p>\n
The mountains had battened it down,
\nscratched out its name.<\/p>\n
Any fool could see it was the ark,
\nsign of some survival, quiet as Ash Wednesday.
\nI knocked on its ribs and no one answered.<\/p>\n
Why should I think of this now?
\nThe park\u2019s closed. She locks the gate,<\/p>\n
the carnival attendant, and drives home
\nto wash her convertible before the sun goes down.<\/p>\n
Bring some beers over, she says.<\/p>\n
*<\/p>\n
Rain trick-or-treats the couple\u2019s door,<\/p>\n
but it is their red sedan that has been candied.
\nThe hood glistens like licked cinnamon.<\/p>\n
Perhaps I am riding an ox-drawn cart
\non the western dip of Cuba\u2019s green moustache.
\nThe oxen are pulling their white thighs<\/p>\n
across the water the rice field pours in.
\nThe pepper-trees are turned up to the highest degree.
\nThere is a sunset, finally.<\/p>\n
Something is over again. Unbundle the curtain,
\nhang it on the bar, raise it into the dusky fly.<\/p>\n
I dig my beat, sweating. I hold out. I get taken,
\nwho never understands my hunger, its<\/p>\n
terrible comfort.<\/p>\n
*<\/p>\n
A hole as if Skylab has fallen<\/p>\n
through the clouds into my disarray,
\na precise pouch, precise and utter<\/p>\n
removal, force an eye from some dark animal
\nall pupil, with no center. The alley<\/p>\n
tortures.
\nThere is a pavement to her comedy.<\/p>\n
Mincemeat dragged through a wet glacier.
\nA dagger slipping across the continent\u2019s ribcage.
\nI am one long hear. Put your hand in my mouth,<\/p>\n
let me taste, and in return, feel all my orbits.
\nYou think time flies? It falls to earth.<\/p>\n
But sometimes evenings after dinner,
\nthe news, the pipe he knocks against the railing,
\nmy father spoke about the time their Buick<\/p>\n
tumbled down the hill and she was pregnant
\nwith the first boy, how their comfort spun.<\/p>\n
He is still surprised, each moment, how
\nthey rose and dusted themselves off,<\/p>\n
and, feeling the baby kick, and, the tires
\nhaving landed right, just drove home.<\/p>\n
*<\/p>\n
The late-night menu mumbles something (inaudible).<\/p>\n
Fat roils the smoked turkey in the black skillet,
\nas I chop mint from Strawberry Creek,
\nand I am parsing onions, carving peppers,
\nsegmenting celery and measuring flour.<\/p>\n
Mister Skylight shines down, full,
\nengorged, shining on all ships from the gorilla sky.<\/p>\n
A lazy brown settles over the dogs and foxes.<\/p>\n
Get Skoog with the whale ballet in his head.
\nListen, the first alarm. Man the lifeboats.
\nThen, as neighbors move around their house<\/p>\n
at night, shuffling and washing,
\nhelp a man who falls in, over and over.
\nNow all the horses are
\npoplars waving across the immense field.<\/p>\n
Jesus in my nightmare *<\/p>\n This is it, spaceman: life on Earth.<\/p>\n It starts when she turns off the lamp Schoolchildren hold up candles By now I could hold it in my palm for the all-skate, the group swim. My soul steps outside. Down boulevards in car wash dust; wind along a post office; *<\/p>\n On the garbage truck, the runners hang<\/p>\n half-out, undefined. Shouting they lift and new Sonys, the granola salad of litter boxes, fish gone bad like plague, blood clots, rum vomit of the bright girl,<\/p>\n the sheet music to Clair de Lune,<\/em> <\/p>\n “Mister Sky Light” is reprinted from Mister Skylight <\/em>(Copper Canyon Press, 2009). Most of the book was written in New Orleans prior to 2005, and revised heavily in the aftermath of the engineering failure that flooded the city following Hurricane Katrina.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Ed Skoog\u2019s<\/a> second book of poems, Rough Day,<\/em> <\/a>will be published by Copper Canyon Press in 2013. His first book, Mister Skylight,<\/em><\/a> was published by Copper Canyon Press in 2009. His poems have appeared in American Poetry Review,<\/a> Paris Review, The New Republic, Poetry, Narrative, Ploughshares,<\/a> Tin House,<\/em> and elsewhere. He has been a Bread Loaf Fellow, Writer-in-Residence at the Richard Hugo House,<\/a> and the Jenny McKean Moore Writer-in-Residence at George Washington University. His work has received awards from, among others, the Lannan Foundation and the Poetry Society of America. He is a visiting writer at the University of Montana for 2012-2013. He lives in Seattle.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" from MISTER SKYLIGHT Big shot walks up his hat atilt, a knife fight in his instep, starts laying it on. The sky falters into the gutters, lobs a few grenades against the barn, flash and pop, and the air … Continue reading
\ncomes down the gravel driveway,
\na teenager in sportswear
\ngo home<\/em> I say
\nhe says give me your home.<\/em><\/p>\n
\nand points to the city\u2019s orange crown.<\/p>\n
\nfor Mister Skylight\u2019s midnight ride.<\/p>\n
\nor sip from it. From some porches,
\nthe night is more. Get ready<\/p>\n
\nMy hand falls to her lap, our teeth click.<\/p>\n
\nhot rods abduct the day. Saudade<\/em><\/p>\n
\na sprinkler reflected in the windows.
\nThe pool\u2019s open; why aren\u2019t we swimming?<\/p>\n
\nlug, tug, huff, drag, and push
\nup the bright defecations, Chinese take-out<\/p>\n
\nacres of bubble wrap, ripped tissues,<\/p>\n
\nsuppositories, diapers, the vomit
\nof the cancer patient wiped up with Brawny,<\/p>\n
\ncuttings from a holly, oyster shells
\non top, round mirrors of the dawn.<\/p>\n