Kathleen Rooney
four poems
**
Domestic
There’s this game I like to play
where I pretend I’ll end you,
sneaking up from behind while
you tend dinner in the kitchen:
Your money or your life.
I’ll cut your tender throat—
..........But if you kill me,
..........you’ll be lonely.
....................Your white teeth
shine in the serrated blade.
I know, I say. It’s only a butter-knife.
**
In Maybe
clicks the key before it fails
to fit the lock. Is the coming No
rattling, a slow rock in the mouth.
Is the prize before they give it
to someone else. Is the chance
we’ll keep this whole thing
to ourselves. Is this not being
the future site of a parking
garage, but a historical
marker. Is growing up
to be the carnival barker,
not the staid stock
broker. Is that delayed
source of light being a star,
not space junk, and the accident
not biting a chunk from the face.
Is not settling a stupid score.
Is no war. Is the possibility
the dog really is just sleeping.
Same with the baby.
Same with you. Is waking,
eventually, rising as from a bed,
no longer dead, just well-rested.
And is each of us: a glint
in the globe of God’s eye.
Is his having an eye,
and us having him.
Is getting the shot
at not X but Y.
**
Friday Night, Working At the Bookstore, You Get Hit On
The handsome architect
leans in, points, brushes
you with his sweater.
Your eyes disassemble
text at the tip of his exquisite
finger; text rebuilds itself
inside your brain:
All great architecture
is the design of space
that contains, cuddles,
exalts or stimulates...
When your friends ask
if you, about to get married,
ever worry about losing
your ‘youthful freedom,’
you lie, play dumb, claim
you don’t know what
they mean. Here comes
the invitation—he’s asking
you to coffee, to dinner,
despite your ring, or
maybe because of it,
knowing you’re young
(he’s got to be 50),
but certainly not jailbait.
This happens often, but
usually they’re not hot,
you’re not filled briefly
with longing, not lust
exactly, but the pleasure
that accompanies inaccessibility,
like when you, pre-teen,
used to read interviews
with foxy stars in Tiger Beat
magazine. The architect’s
clothes by Ralph Lauren,
his shoes by Kenneth Cole
(worth more than your whole
night’s work) make you picture
undressing—the tiny claps
of snaps unsnapping, zippers
clicking fast past half-mast
to open, the satisfying pop
of knots undone. In that
moment, there it is, naked,
your biggest problem:
you know just what
you want, but not how
to stop once you’ve got it.
**
Abandoned Buildings Fly By Like the Credits of a Movie
Their shattered windows are letters
razored out by censors:
RU_NS ARE S_D BEC_USE
WE IM_GINE O_R SOC_ETY RU_NED
Time telescopes & we see places
we frequent &
faces we love in the ruins’ places—
scar-like traces on the face
of the earth, which itself doesn’t
give a single fuck.
**
return to sawbuck 1.1
**
Kathleen Rooney's first book is Reading With Oprah ( University of Arkansas, 2005). Her poems have appeared recently in AGNI On-line, Smartish Pace, and Crab Orchard Review. Her essay "Live Nude Girl" is forthcoming in Twentysomething Essays by Twentysomething Writers (Random House, 2006).
**
Domestic
There’s this game I like to play
where I pretend I’ll end you,
sneaking up from behind while
you tend dinner in the kitchen:
Your money or your life.
I’ll cut your tender throat—
..........But if you kill me,
..........you’ll be lonely.
....................Your white teeth
shine in the serrated blade.
I know, I say. It’s only a butter-knife.
**
In Maybe
clicks the key before it fails
to fit the lock. Is the coming No
rattling, a slow rock in the mouth.
Is the prize before they give it
to someone else. Is the chance
we’ll keep this whole thing
to ourselves. Is this not being
the future site of a parking
garage, but a historical
marker. Is growing up
to be the carnival barker,
not the staid stock
broker. Is that delayed
source of light being a star,
not space junk, and the accident
not biting a chunk from the face.
Is not settling a stupid score.
Is no war. Is the possibility
the dog really is just sleeping.
Same with the baby.
Same with you. Is waking,
eventually, rising as from a bed,
no longer dead, just well-rested.
And is each of us: a glint
in the globe of God’s eye.
Is his having an eye,
and us having him.
Is getting the shot
at not X but Y.
**
Friday Night, Working At the Bookstore, You Get Hit On
The handsome architect
leans in, points, brushes
you with his sweater.
Your eyes disassemble
text at the tip of his exquisite
finger; text rebuilds itself
inside your brain:
All great architecture
is the design of space
that contains, cuddles,
exalts or stimulates...
When your friends ask
if you, about to get married,
ever worry about losing
your ‘youthful freedom,’
you lie, play dumb, claim
you don’t know what
they mean. Here comes
the invitation—he’s asking
you to coffee, to dinner,
despite your ring, or
maybe because of it,
knowing you’re young
(he’s got to be 50),
but certainly not jailbait.
This happens often, but
usually they’re not hot,
you’re not filled briefly
with longing, not lust
exactly, but the pleasure
that accompanies inaccessibility,
like when you, pre-teen,
used to read interviews
with foxy stars in Tiger Beat
magazine. The architect’s
clothes by Ralph Lauren,
his shoes by Kenneth Cole
(worth more than your whole
night’s work) make you picture
undressing—the tiny claps
of snaps unsnapping, zippers
clicking fast past half-mast
to open, the satisfying pop
of knots undone. In that
moment, there it is, naked,
your biggest problem:
you know just what
you want, but not how
to stop once you’ve got it.
**
Abandoned Buildings Fly By Like the Credits of a Movie
Their shattered windows are letters
razored out by censors:
RU_NS ARE S_D BEC_USE
WE IM_GINE O_R SOC_ETY RU_NED
Time telescopes & we see places
we frequent &
faces we love in the ruins’ places—
scar-like traces on the face
of the earth, which itself doesn’t
give a single fuck.
**
return to sawbuck 1.1
**
Kathleen Rooney's first book is Reading With Oprah ( University of Arkansas, 2005). Her poems have appeared recently in AGNI On-line, Smartish Pace, and Crab Orchard Review. Her essay "Live Nude Girl" is forthcoming in Twentysomething Essays by Twentysomething Writers (Random House, 2006).
