Dancing Like My Mother

The glands in his throat are swollen so
that when he turns his head
he feels them pressing into his throat.
A woman sits on the sidewalk
at 6th street just below mission
in a green running jacket and track pants
her face fallen, pale, and round,
with thinning white curly baby hair,
thick brown tinted glasses, two missing
front teeth and a gold chain peaking
from behind her collar.
She's hunched forwards, her whole torso
tilted toward a tiny green plastic bound
edition of the new testament. The words
seem too small, all of her bent towards it
as if her shoulders and her neck and her chest
are all trying to sort out the tiny text.
She moves her lips.
He struggles to keep his eyes open,
feet heavy and thick, "it's like walking through water"
he says, maybe to her. She does not look up.
He wades into the corner market. A bell chimes
the man at the counter does not flinch.
He buys a fifth of HandH (Ancient Age whiskey, which
when pronounced quickly sounds like HandH. His friends
introduced him to this brand, and it took three full
months for him to know the name correctly as Ancient Age,
though he still says HandH when ordering or purchasing
the whiskey. "HandH, 7and7...," he thinks, "These things
are all the same."
He also buys a quart of whole milk.
He will drink the milk now, and he will drink the whiskey later.
The smell of it alone will relax him, will lay all the hairs
of his body flat, his scalp will tighten with anticipation,
ears pushed back and ready.
(He exits into a cool dim day, the fog rolling in eastward along
Howard street. He crosses away from the woman
and the store, small droplets of rain peppering
his shaved head. His sneakers creak and groan.
He squints behind large black glasses, teeth aching
"Someday," he thinks, "I will have no home"
opening the heavy newly installed grey door
to his apartment, where his friend is cooking
greens in a bullion broth and brewing very nice
nutty coffee, and singing loudly a song by morrisey.
"Someday," he thinks, "I may be that woman"
he enters the kitchen hungry and thirsty
with barely a voice left in his throat, the milk
almost slipping from his hand, the whiskey
heavy in his jacket pocket.)

Posted by Johnny at 10:17 AM | Permalink | Comments

she touches her face
the tip of her left ring finger
brushes the top of the arch of her
dark eye brow.
This is the site of some great tragedy.
This one spot.

My brother said that if I wanna gain
weight I have to drink 3 glasses of whole
milk each day.
I'm reminded of the time he and i drank glasses of
milk then jumped rope in the empty auditorium of
an elementary school where my father was a custodian.
I almost vomited.
And also that time at summer camp when rueben organized
a milk drinking contest.
So at a table in the middle of a field in august 12
teenagers poured gallons of very cold milk into their stomachs.
They shivered, chilling from the inside out.
Then they started to vomit, one by one.
Thick ropes of bright white milk
flooding out of their mouths and noses.
Even Gen who took her time and read a magazine
she vomited too. There were no retching sounds,
no hacking, just the sudden wet release of milk into the grass.


She smells like sugar. Like sweet cheap perfume.
But it's not perfume, almost like the wrapper of a hard
candy, that weirdly powdery smell, chalky and bright.
Her hand does not shake. And when you look at her she's all you can
see. Like her edges are blurred or rubbed with vaseline
so it's just weird monet painting colors and swirls, but nothing
solid.

(Her mouth moves dumbly,
her thick red tongue looks wet
like a peeled cherry or tomato.
You notice the size of her wrists.
They too easily break, in your imagination.
Just snap, like wooden chopsticks pulled apart.
The inside corner of her right eye twitches,
just barely, but the skin pulls up and in
You hold her broken wrists in your imagination
There's no blood just dust.
You can not look her in the eye anymore,
not with her broken wrists in your hands, in your mind.
You stare at her mouth, it moves and moves
all you hear though, is the snapping, grinding and
cracking of her bones.)

Posted by Johnny at 7:15 PM | Permalink | Comments

What I remember is
lying on the bed
with you on my left side wearing
that red and purple flannel that i like,
with your beard and your semi military hair cut
and your tiny red and black cap that
gives you that kid-like appearence
and him on the right his hair all tangles and long
in a white tshirt, and short athletic shorts
no shoes
than also him at the foot of the bed
in a chair or kneeling, short hair, clean shaven
looking all of 21 though he's more
he kept talking
while you were just grinding your teeth
and i was kissing the one on my right.


I wanted to kiss him more
but thought it would be rude because we
were all having so much fun together
though we were just lying there
or kneeling there and i wasnt talking
and you weren't either.
but i didn't want to be rude.
so i didnt kiss him.
in fact i don't remember
kissing him at all. I assume I did.
While your worked your jaw over and over.
The one kneeling or sitting, he microwaved a
cd. We debated it first, if it would be a good idea
to microwavea cd in a small small hotel room that barely fit
a bed and a mini fridge and a microwave and a tv and the 4 of us.
I feel asleep, then woke back up as the cd sparked inside
the black microwave.
It only lasted 4 seconds because we didn't want to start
a fire.
I kissed him again.

the next day sitting on my couch
at home around 4p.m. andrew gave me all the details
he said we were kissing. him and me, not me and andrew.
yeah. so i was kissing him even though
i don't remember now.
I wish i did because i bet it felt good.
especially with all the drugs we were on.
all three of us.
i forgot then, what i remember now, that unlike
alcohol sometimes less is more.

you take just one pill.
you lie on a bed.
you dance.
you drink water.
more does not make it better
more makes it more. which is not better, always.
you do not need three pills
you do not need 2 fifths of whiskey
and 3 hours in a hot tub
playing spin the bottle that you can not
remember.

Posted by Johnny at 5:37 PM | Permalink | Comments

I'd draw my teeth. With a black fine tip sharpie.
First my face, drawing my face
with a sharpie, I'd leave out the bags under my eyes
and the rosacea on my nose, I'd thicken my eyebrows
and bring my jaw down and hairline in, just a bit.
I'd draw my mouth wide wide open, lips streteched to a giant O.
(is that how you spell o, or is it Oh, or is it OE?)
My mouth stretched into a giant oval. My lips practically dissappeared
they are streteched so tight.
My teeth all lined up, but not drawn perfectly. Not as straight as they are now, but slightly off, enough to be realistic.
I'd draw my teeth a bit bigger than they are
and squarer, and whiter. I'd draw them falling out.
The molars first though, tumbling past my front teeth, or kind of jumping over the front ones, like tiny little sheeps jumping over a fence. But I'd draw them as teeth, not sheep. No legs, no wool, but jumping like sheep would.
I'd draw them tumbling past my chin to the bottom of the page
where I'd draw them in a pile.
Like they are piled on the bottom of the page.
Then my front teeth would fall out. Flat and square, I'd draw them falling straight down, like if a sheet of paper could fall straight, like a body falling, that's how they'd look when I drew them falling.

Then I'd use a red sharpie and draw a thin line of blood from my mouth to my chin, a drip of it on the top of the pile of teeth.
Then the black sharpie again to draw a thin tear down my face, still no bags under my eyes, no wrinkles, just the smooth smooth paper, and the open wide toothless oval of my mouth.
I'd blacken that part in, so it looks like a hole.

Posted by Johnny at 11:21 AM | Permalink | Comments