From Instrument: Diatribe Poems
TABLE FRUIT
Once, I climbed into a tree on the bank of a river on the border between two countries. To pose for a photograph. This border lies in a desert or one might say the desert is a border or fever-dream of. I wore a yellow dress chosen by the white woman photographer who also had chosen me, one afternoon in a parking lot. I admired her photographs so I said yes. Even as I understood it was my skin, an indeterminate brownness I was well-versed at inhabiting, that made me the perfect candidate to fulfill her vision of a particular enactment of body in that particular tree on the desert riverbank between two contraries; sometimes juxtaposition is not so much counterpoint as it may also be—re-vision. The palm fronds were long, dry, pale brown, laced with fine spiky edges. I kept my shoes on to climb into the tree, then took them off and tossed them back down to the ground for the picture. I held a yellow bunch of ripe bananas in my left hand and stared into the middle distance. The photographer already had a title in mind for this photograph: Table Fruit.
TABLE FRUIT
i am standing on the bank of a river
between
(supposed) two contraries
it is morning november-bright desert cool
i am wearing a yellow
dress
river re-dreamt into divining line
to covet
indeterminate architecture of body
brownness wanted
yes i climbed into the tree
those fat dense fan palms imports also
to the chihuahua hot springs valley
& held
in my left hand
(supposed) my skin’s
but i understood my role
to allow others sometimes
i am holding distance
i am wearing countries
fevers
an indeterminate people
a yellow dress
bananas
a trick of the light or of relationality
i stood in their labiate
relief
between two
THE REFUGEE PORN STAR WEARS A CAT SUIT
The refugee porn star wears a cat- suit complete with cat-mask bcuz s/he knows they want and love most (esp on the inter- net) those little or furry or big-eyed ones In the mirror I practice having a waist bcuz how will I get back home w/o one ? It should be dimin- utive enuff (that word) to make an average man’s forearm look big &/or saving-limb-like & wd u prefer me in the yellow dress or the yellow pantsuit or in diphthongs ? In truth I have never really been palimp- sestuous
FLOWER DIATRIBE #2
Note: This poem has a precedent in “Flower Diatribe #1”, a text and video poem first published in Poetry Northwest.
It always begins something like this—with the attempted placement of one mouth over another.
You waking to you as body as oppositional territory
“It’s like, there’s a Ferrari and I’ve never driven a Ferrari before, and I’m thinking if I can drive it I should drive it.”
Or the one whose stray dog defecated in your closet the night he thought he was there to comfort you: “You just have to ask God and the baby to forgive you.”
But to the one who offered himself as an eagle and you the rabbit, that time you said no. Even though he might at some point have written you a recommendation letter. Or given you a pen in parting.
So you could keep on writing.
And so that on his end, when he took out his matching one to sign a document or contract or check at some future point, he would simultaneously send out to you a single thought, picturing you naked, back in the place where (he believes) he conquered yet gave something to you.
A manner of country (always) (separate) from his own.
Instead: you wake alone. You walk out into a cold morning.
You belong to no one.
