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The Suburban Mould
Sunday, March 4, 2007 That grass you're showing off
lies in long lines of light and dark
along the green,
snipped and shaped and fertilized
into an outdoor carpet
that requires special shoes with nubs
and carts with soft wheels.
Your bedrooms have closed doors and heavy drapes
and secret drawers,
suckers that have you lick the clothes off naked people,
and magazines full of ladies with heavy breasts called pendulous
lie in and on clean and modern furniture
while the bedskirt hides the shoes.
There were sparkles on the plastic flowers
and sparkles in your see-through plastic summer footwear
and sparkles in the stippled ceiling,
the ceiling to which I would never refer out loud,
because stipple was far too close to nipple,
and God knew what my thoughts were.
In those days, I was made to wear dresses on Sundays,
and although I pretended to be a co-conspirator,
they were too straight and clean,
and my nylons made me horny
when they bunched to one side in the car
on the way home from church.
I liked how wrong it was to want the painful stick
of my damp legs stuck to tan vinyl
in the Buick's hot back seat
and how the red impressions on my thighs
would burn all through Sunday dinner.
Come dear Lord and be our guest
was the prayer before consumption
in the days when asking for grace meant automatic receipt
and I didn't know that gravy was a violent reduction,
Jesus was the co-conspirator,
and I was to be an outdoor carpet with secret drawers
in the suburban mould.
Reader Comments (8)
Nice. Made me nostalgic and glad of escape all at once. I think the lawn thing is some kind of placebo to sublimate male drives. Shoveling the driveway was another. Our house was the only one on the block with bare concrete all winter long.
I am a true man so I have to concede that my favorite part was the nylons, but you have a real talent for creating a poetic story that is so visual. Being spiritual and not religious I really enjoyed the whole thing, especially the ending. Very sexual.
I liked the story telling way of the poem. It took me onto a journey.
The mood of this poem, rebellious and needing to express feelings so human and contrasted to the rigid reality you were living in. You communicated this really well. Flowed nicely. Thanks.
I know I don't know you, but I sometimes confuse people's writing for them. If I like their writing, I assume it's them I like. Well, I love you right now. I fucking love you.
Wow. Another friggin' tour de force. I like the idea of being a co-conspirator with Jesus. I dig all the juxtapositions and internal contradictions in this piece.
I like your yo' writing.
Boy, howdy, I am simply swimming in the concept of gravy as a "violent reduction" -- I think about marrow -- the draining of potential into a concentrated afterthought to be pushed around a plate, left to congeal...
I grew up in a household that did not use Jesus as the weapon-of-choice, but nonetheless aimed me -- girl-person -- towards being "snipped and shaped and fertilized" into a manicured showpiece -- to be walked on -- special shoes, my ass...
The beauty of the secret drawers, though, is that you can reclaim them for your own...
This is such a complicated and beautiful poem. Beautifully sad. I love the line "painful stick...to tan vinyl" and Jesus as the co-conspirator.