Poetry from The Literary Review
Silly Love Songs
Rodney Wittwer
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Kiss “Well of course” she says “of course your missives gusted like tumble weeds across the ghost town of my life, you fucking slob, you big fat nerve.” Then she sweetly cuts a melon down the middle & takes the dripping red chunks out to the garden, the one full of food, flowers & guests. No “Riding shotgun down the avalanche” —Shawn Colvin “Faster” she kept saying, “much farther & faster.” The sunflower soared & cast no shadow. The anomaly of the anemone that never came up. “More” she would chant, like a warrior, like a pony given the green light to a cloven foot, tail forked & spinning the wigged air. “Harder” she spat, than lava much later, the impenetrable core of anything cooled beyond cold. “Tastier” she kept saying, “much further & tastier.” Yes “Yes” he says “yes” & places a pearl on his tongue & slowly closes his lips while a shadow rubs the one good eye he’s allowed & as the light swinging above the table stops point blank above him he says “fake, fake” & blows it out. The Ties That Blind I loved him like a brother & let him place the gun in my mouth a sign of trust the family doctor’s tongue depressor a mother’s all day sucker a propeller hovering just that tiny flick above the heart.
When we are singing we are in the midst of delight & when we are not we are not. Silence hangs a skinned bell, slit tongue displayed on ice, the raw message of entrails composedly about. In the leisurely steaming that breaks out we could warm our hands for a moment before thinking about that particular form of radiator. The gasped verse of alone in the shower when the heat goes, the slow burn of washing up next to the head of a ghost. It is singing that keeps this in tune, or not. |
