Kiss My Ass, I’m Going Dancing

my husband says arguing with me is like watching storm waves 

crash into granite in that the waves never stop coming 

and the rock never gives, it’s all fascinatingly furious and natural 

to which I responded by unbuttoning my pants and mooning his round face

then latching shut his bedroom door just as his blue eyes flashed,

anyway, it was him that chased this big salt and he can’t pretend 

he didn’t know how ready to pounce my nipples, he can’t pretend

he isn’t a groundhog who’d destroy the foundation in a single season

just like the patient who told me that there’d been another shooting 

up the street real close to my work, she warned me to stop walking to work

because it is no longer safe to walk to work NO LONGER SAFE

and I won’t stop but it seemed wrong to dismiss the wound she was baring

so instead I took a moment to explain how I’m writing a new poem

addressed to death titled, Kiss My Ass, I’m Going Dancing,

but instead of hearing me she seemed offended by the word ass

being tossed in a medical setting and began blinking rapidly 

and it became clear that she wanted me to hold the burden of her fear,

she wanted me to feel scared like she was scared, Anyway, she said,

watch for reflections in the side mirrors of parked cars and shop windows

to assure you’re not being followed, I know this since I am from the BIG CITY.

The first lines of the poem are:

how the tongue of a dog

             springs out    enormously         

 the heart is    incorrigible

and she grabbed my hand with her soft hand and said cross the street 

and cross it again and do not ever look down at your phone, stay alert,

and now roused is my fear of sudden male fury, unpredictable and cruel

which lives in my throat and under my collar bone and against my cervix 

thickening in my endometrium and spiking the pressure of my blood,

waiting to unspool any second - how violence prophecies violence -

and thanks to this lady I’m picturing Tom Cruise 

from the movie Legend where he’s trapped underwater 

by sudden winter and a growing disc of ice 

bubbles tumbling from his mouth and he is pounding the ice 

kicking and panicking and it’s all caged fear and nothing moves

and the princess is shrieking and the goblin hacks the horn from the unicorn

and now storm waves break across the granite crag of my ribs

arguments that are ongoing and incessant and never change 

beating their foaming heads against an immovable stand of rock 

Exposure to cold is important for many plants,

I tell my warm-to-the-touch daughter, explaining  

that the numb seeds of primrose must wait for spring

Do you think you’re invulnerable, asked my sister 

and though her care was easy what I heard was 

Are you delusional and the answer is, Yes, 

I am a superhero,

and tonight’s mission is a dark bar with heavy chairs 

and amber lights populated by people who are not drunk 

but drunk enough to stop policing themselves and others 

and there is righteous ridiculousness in the air

- Did you know that Janet Mills deals coke? -

and I can kick back with a cold one and listen to libertarians

talk about their mothers and get confused by their own phones,

set my beer atop a pulpy coaster, lean a hip against the juke box

and press buttons that lead to furious blasts of joy

so is the dark wood, so is the unlit trail,

so is the hidden path, the things and places you should not touch or go

the waves the crag the granite the ice the gun

so, aggrieved husband

so, big city lady

so, Tom Cruise in the movie Legend

Look up, look up 

before the scleras freeze,

look past the crystals forming 

the heart a Torch

a holy blur dancing

atop the cold disc of Death