Teahouse of the Almighty by Patricia Smith

Author:Patricia Smith [Smith, Patricia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Poetry
ISBN: 9781566893664
Amazon: B00GNGH2ME
Barnesnoble: B00GNGH2ME
Goodreads: 18987461
Publisher: Coffee House Press
Published: 2006-09-01T04:00:00+00:00

IN THE AUDIENCE TONIGHT

for Philip

She is unnerved, anxious

at the state of the world,

but he insists that she uncoil.

The fluorescent light overhead

leaves her stretched bare,

vaguely ashamed of the ease

with which she’s been translated.

In her language, exclamations

are held in the mouth

until they are too weak to escape.

They are both the children

of their absent fathers. His dad

was a sleek guitar neck,

hers a gritty dollop of Delta

cocky behind the steering of a car

propped up on northern wheels.

Their fathers are the dead

puppeteers who push them

toward one another

then pull them apart,

who jerk tangled strings

and teach them the blues out loud.

It will be hard to recall a time

when they were exactly

what they are now,

poised to become all of it

in spite of themselves.

His singing burns

like the blue sun

inked on his forearm.

She fully intends one word

to turn the earth’s heart.

Such merriment

as the fathers watch their children.

They’re those cackling, unruly ghosts

taking up no space at all in the third row,

the ones who tipped in

when the room’s back was turned.

Guffawing until Camel spittle

and penny whiskey

spew from their grins,

they bob bony noggins

to the blue grind

and sing along.

They love that their offspring

waste their time so valiantly,

shapeshifting,

offering their verse and voltage

to crowds of solemn drunks,

hanging for all they’re worth

to one cracking point of a star.

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