Andrea Reising Poetry
Gadfly Wiles
July 1997-April 2000
*
It is like that
Sometimes
I suppose
I cannot find a frame
To place your picture in
I do not know the words to use
To talk about the things
I feel for you
*
I am still in bed
Below the covers
Foot shaking
(The only sign)
*
I wrote my name
Lolita
Thought it might be funny
For awhile
To pretend I’m something
I am not
But maybe would be
Some day
*
Flesh laden shoulder blade
Crinkles in a movement
Of your sleep
I would like to feel my
Belly here to belly there
Alignment of us just so
The meeting of two bodies’
Better parts
*
So much depends on
So little
The angle of your chin
When we spoke
Slowly and quietly
Across the table from one another
In an old folks’ diner
I have a heart
To call you back to me
But there are two of us
Not just one
Who must decide to give
A little more
Than strange condolences
*
I do not make it through the day
From start to finish
Without stopping where I stand
Immobile with my
Longing for you
I keep trying to find answers
For questions I have
Yet to unearth nerve
Enough to ask
*
Pitter patter
Down the stairs
One foot then another
Top to Bottom
We will go
And up to
Top again
*
They do not tell you
If things are meant to be
Ambiguous to the extent
Of rendering your insides numb
*
Once I wondered
How many heartbeats
I had made thus far
Figured if I counted every one
That went by in one minute
Took that minute
Multiplied by sixty
Then twenty-four then seven
Fifty-two and twenty
Minus five days
I would know
But then I realized
Sometimes hearts go
Quick or slow
Flout that beat-
To-minute ratio
*
My heart
(the thing I have been taught to call)
My heart
Pains me more
Than I believe
One heart should
And yet I lack the strength
Or scheming ways
To stop it
*
Urs knew all along
She would miss Francesca.
When the time came
I wasn’t certain
How I would feel
How I would fit in
F. left for Stanford
Before I had the chance
To meet and know her
I assumed Urs would cry a lot
School nights on the phone
I didn’t know what to say
Except that I was sorry
Over the line
I could feel Urs’s chest tightening
Her instant shortness of breath
A very great sinking in us both
We were unprepared
For F. to go so soon
Even though the Mayo doctors
Said her life would not be long
Urs had known and loved her
From the very beginning
I tried to picture F.
The way they’d found her
Heart failed
Shower water shrouding
Her quiescent body
*
Give yourself time
To get ready for things
Your life
Almost always is not a
(1-2 step) simple solution
You’ll have to climb and tear
And sometimes snag your heart
On something
Maybe snap it open
*
I do not wear
Large heels and mascara
For nothing
I do not smoke at bars
And drink for no reason
And yet
I am so tired
Of this atmosphere
The smoky air
That tastes of beer
The things that never
Manage to fill-in
For love’s long leave
Of absence
*
The reprimands I’d give myself
If I were there before me
Encountering you between
The tuna and the candy bars
In line to register
At a nearby market
For not grabbing you
And holding tightly on
So I might have you
Huddled up against my body
Hand sandwiched
In between my thighs
I did not realize
My love for you
Quick enough
*
My downfalls
Harness me
With these dull pipe dreams
You are that which
I would possess
Over and over
*
Walking from door to Metro icon
Is not like walking
From bed to door
I must look both ways
And remember not to run
I am not obligated
To manage an insipid smile
Just because you do
Or indulge in morning niceties
As I pull socks and shoes and underwear
*
I will admit
I sometimes cannot but resent
My womanness
In contrast to you as a man
It can be quite
A typical dimension
*
I watched you all the way
To Fourth Street
(Where your body all at once
Fell out of sight)
And suddenly I noted
That sense of one’s own
Dreaded manumission
*
Standing in my open doorway
Looking out onto an empty street
Lonely when all light drains
To our other hemisphere
Thinking of your hands
In contrast to my own
My never-ending habit
Of ambivalence
*
I have this guilty
Thing I do
Guilty for the
Too-big curves
Of my body
For the indulgence of sleep
For not loving
One man only
Spending money
Where I don’t quite
Need to spend
For being slow
To smile
And quick to leave
A dim circumstance
A question unanswered
A point not taken
The vast troubles of the world
Untended to
*
I love the carelessness
Of my unshaven armpit
My mother used to try
To make me shave it
She would glare at me
And scream lividly
Terming me
Disgusting little bitch
Until the night
I left my mother
Sitting in the station
I think of her sometimes
When I am staring
Blankly at the wall
Slowly running the
Flats of my fingers
Back and forth
And back again
Along the dry skin of
My muscled arm
*
I think I’m having trouble
Getting my life together
There is garbage from yesterday
Sitting on my floor
And next to it is garbage
From the day before
*
I sing a sad song
Hoping for a voice
To call back
From beyond my window ledge
To lay soundtrack to the stillness
Of my empty bed
*
I love a man
Metaphorically
Again
Man as metaphor for love
Since I have been convinced
By my own wariness of woe
That I will never have him
*
You were smoking a cigarette
Just inside the glass door
As I waited in the cold air of the street
You opened wide the way
To tenderness of inside heat
Asking if I would come in
No need to freeze myself, you said
We hung in silence
Till you spoke
Of something casual
And then we joked about the bitterness
Of cold
That Midwest forced us both to greet
I thought perhaps
That fate had wanted us to meet
Since you were in from San Diego
And I from New York City
Each of us no more than visiting
If it was fate
Then fate must have it in for love
Settled as we were at that time
Each of us in our own habitats
I am happy being alone in the city
Most of the time
*
I can’t imagine
How it would be
To share you
With another woman
If you were mine
And you loved
Another woman
*
No thank you to
Another round of this
Wishing for the thing
I do not have
*
It does not happen
With a bang
No
My agitation
Drags itself in
Like a dog
That has come home
From being gone
It is like every time
I try to
Speak
Exasperation will
Not let words follow
*
I’m twenty now
And still I’m having
Teenage angst
*
Today I’m twenty
Maybe twenty will be
Easier
Did the best I could to help her
Walk away from death
Held her up so lungs could breath
Carried her dead weight
Moving our legs not quite
Fast enough beneath her body
Through the automatic sliding door
Beneath a neon glow
EMERGENCY
Bright in the still-dark morning
Curled up on a dark orange vinyl chair
We waited in the dirty lobby
They’d asked us to step out
Snapping into powdered rubber gloves
Later tossed into a special can
For special garbage
I couldn’t see her till next evening
Unconscious
Strapped by wrists and ankles
To the bed
Her parents all the way from Boston
Calling to us on the car phone as they drove
I held mother’s hands
We felt beneath the blankets
For her cold toes
On the metal bed that could
Be rolled here and there
Thoughts of the ecstasy
Before it had its way with her
Stories of our strange dreams
That crowded sea of sweat
Body after body
Holding onto one another
Her gasping growing
More intense
The reality of hers I could not understand
Her unresponsiveness
Small frame stiffening
Jaw locked
My hands trying foolishly
To pry open closing mouth
Wishing to make way for air
That ceased to transpire
Now upheld
By the beeping of
ICU room monitors
*
A word
From the Front
Line:
It is
Slow
At times
But not always
Slow
*
Wheels make
Bump-bump sounds
Underneath
Our feet
Your eyes heavy
Like mine
My book of matches wet
And so I wait for dashboard lighter
To click back, incandescent
Silently smoking one cigarette
Between the two of us
Listening to rain chase down
The dented metal of our roof
Squeaking rubber of the windshield wipers
Seems to ask us something
I unroll my window just a bit
And flick hot ashes out to the passing wind
Watching orange trails far behind us
In the dark of night
*
I love a million things
And you are every one
*
Bridge of my nose
Cradled by your neck
I inhale slow
I love the smell of you
Even your male armpits
And stale breath
Of morning
*
My love falls upon
A small animal
A young mouse
Of a man
I try to fathom
What he wants
Wishing he thought
Loud for me to hear
Since his mouth
Says so little
*
Northbound
Morning LIRR
My eyes closed
Forehead resting on
The glass of window
Meditative
In this haggardness of six a.m.
On the memory of your movements
As you padded softly to the closet
Across dust-ridden wooden floor
Reconciling pin-striped pants
With that hounds-tooth tie
The tired curve of your back
The mustle of your hair
Silhouetted by soft light
Helplessly intruding through
The drawn blinds of the window
Fainthearted since it knows
Its advent want of welcome
*
I am thinking of you
As I walk heavy-footed
Through a parking lot
Balancing two bags of groceries
And a blue-rimmed gallon
Of skim milk
My heart hard and soft
In different places
*
I would like to love someone
More than I have loved
Any other someone
More because
It is not short-lived
More because it runs
In and out of days
Over cracks and crevices
More because it grows
Healthy mostly
Not cock-eyed and ambivalent
*
I am tired
Of walking around
Lonely
From fourth street to fourteenth
*
A very small
And surging thing
Nibbles at my heart
Dictating
What my body
Parts desire
*
Rain falling
Masks me from
The busy street
Slow and weak
Canned coffee percolating
In the morning
I remember your vein
Sludging blue blood
Through the precious
Skin of you
*
Excuse me
Can I please
Acquit myself of love
It is so daunting
To go through each day
So unsatisfied
*
I am clearing out a bit
Discarding things I’ve kept
But haven't used
Tiny tubes of lotion
Free samples of shampoos and perfumes
A second toothbrush
I bought so you would
Not ruin mine
I had to sponge away
It’s outline left in grime
Along the outskirts
Of the sink
*
I am not vulnerable
Because my arm is twisted
Into being so
I was not forced to live
My life without a man
Without some man home
To house my troubles in
Not even the most
Mobile of abodes
A trailer or a motor bike
With saddle bags that I can rest in
No fondle from said safety
Of man walls
*
They do not tell you
How it will feel
To be alone
Night after night
And not know where to
Take your meanings from
*
Wind along wet sand
Sounds to me
Like sighs we once used
But have since discarded
I have disregarded
Wicked weather twice before
Rode my tin bike to the shore
Lingered along low tide
Cold ankles in cold water
Breathing in haphazard spray of saltwater
Brought on by the breaking surf
As its slow fade meets land
My eyes some strange, inverted
Catheter of sorts
Insistent on exposing me
My reticent enclosures
To this gray light of
Each morning
*
I hopped on one this morning
Hoping I could make it to California or Seattle
But I could only get to Queens
I guess subway cars don’t go transcontinental
*
Your smile suffers
The same tragedy as mine
Roguish contempt
For self-invited weariness
Still I’d not trade
This slight martyrdom
Or barter lost battles
To fund my flight
From disappointment
And since I haven’t got
Quite fare enough
To earn my way by train
I guess I’ll hitch
The celebrated jaunt
To happiness