by Sarah Maclay
Jealousy: this one’s easy: putting a face on a premonition
of loss. For instance, New Girl From The South, wearing
the sea on her wrist like a bangle, or even my friend with
the opal eyes.
Crazy: see above. Technically, the inability to properly
distinguish. For our purposes: what you are when you exhibit
various uncontrollable symptoms, one of which is jealousy.
(Even if you’re right.)
Crazy work week: not to be confused with simply Crazy.
Means: hunch at desk and cry. Even happen to you? Also
not to be confused with the less brutal lunch at desk,
though this could be a warning.
Isolated: to depend on e-mail to communicate.
Beats same situatiion, no computer.
The Web is a blizzard. I shall not want.
Irony: see above. Improper use of the 23rd psalm,
without attribution.
Stupid: the way I feel when they change the rules.
You too? Good. Then you’ll know what I mean
when I say feeling stupid can feel bad.
Bad: see Rather blue.
Paranoid: See Jealousy. Multiply. Invent.
T.S. Eliot was right. This is a literary reference,
having to do with the nature of April, always
a shock if you still believe that promise
equals spring.
Gravity: “What goes up”-
you know the rest, I’m sure.
What else, what else? I’m trying to remember
all the other things I still might not have told you
in a way that you can understand.
(Rather Blue, just so you know, means looking to die
but unwilling to carve the initials
into my hand.)
From Music for the Black Room (University of Tampa Press, 2011)
Sarah Maclay is the author of three books of poetry, all published by The University of Tampa Press. She is the artistic director of THE THIRD AREA reading series in Los Angeles, and lives in Venice, California.
*Photo courtesy of khrawlings.