All The Town's Planetariums Are Closed For Business But Yours

Juan Felipe Herrera's collection Giraffe On Fire is dense and awesome. It's political and inescapable. It's tight image and unattributed dialogue. I'm going to have to read this book three or four times to properly tell you why it's about. What you should read it to. But read it. 

The book is divided into five parts. Each with their own style of formatting. The first part starts off with stage directions setting you up for a play. Which had me thinking of when I used to work in the theater. The summer that everything fell apart and the winter where I tried to put it back together but only succeeded in dispersing what had fallen. I have enough poems about the dead boyfriend, not as many about the aftermath without him.

---

Honey Is Sweeter Than Blood
Adam Stone


          I.

The stairs don't skin
They deskin
Your skin on some stair
But inertia
The bottom is coming
Laugh at the innuendo
Ouch

The lobby is barren
Drops of your blood
Keep running

The green room
The mirror
Your face is no worse than before the stairs

Another staircase
Up this time
Up
No more falling

The music is vamp
You enter
They do not ask about the blood
The blood makes sense
The audience

You sing
You die on stage
It's scripted

They pack you in the empty Coke machine

Roll back out
Descend the stairs
Safely
Slowly
Off comes the jacket
The chain catches on Ow

Your knees a planetarium

Another actor comes downstairs
Lost in the planetarium

Fetch the solarcaine

The rest of the show you're someone else
Scheduled for wheelchair
Blanket over your fishnetted lap and legs

One more up the stairs
One more down
Paced

You hit your marks
You hit your notes

Your planetarium is stunning in hot pink fishnets

The lobby

The crowd

The cute guy from the audience
You chose him
You mocked him
You touched his ears

His mother
-oh god- his mother?
His mother takes a picture of you
Him glasses
Him black pants
Him pressed shirt
Him teeth so can opener

You hot pink fishnets
No wheelchair
Teeth still remember the shape of braces
Expensive teeth
Retainer lost
They are starting to drift to unique

Him college
-whew-
You college
Same college
One month
You maybe
Him see ya

You undressing room
Mirror too much lipstick
Hair looks like gravity suspended

Maybe him see ya

          II.

You are not an immediate pedestal. Though he steps on you. Didn't tell anyone how you touched him when you met. How you misread your course schedule and walked into him playing hacky-sack. The 90s hit you on your chest and you let it roll down and rest on your shoe. There are so many feet between you. Your heart a jam band. You'll stop listening to it in a few years.

          III.

You meet someone else
He smells like a jam band but 
                   looks like Maybe. 

You do not touch him anywhere.
You invite him to your birthday.
                                 your 21st birthday

It's karaoke night at your usual 
                       bar where no one is allowed to tell the bartender 
                       you're just turning twenty-one 

       Lightning

       Literal lightning

The kitchen is The Library of Alexandria

There is a hard rain falling from
                every sprinkler in the ceiling

Karaoke is finally ruined by something
                                 other than bros

Your acting professor offers his favorite bar
You follow
                      because his directions make no sense

A bar across from the lot
                                  where you bought your current car

The only building there has blacked out wind---

                                                                                          oh

          IV.

Piano
The instrument
The noise level
Your classmates
Dancing
The only dancing
The only under forty
You dancing
You've got great rhythm
Pity you don't know what to do with it
Your professor
Your glancing at Maybe
Your dancing
Who would you bring to Plato's retreat
Reference to a scene I'm working on
Beyond Therapy
Christopher Durang 
He saw you glancing at Maybe
Five drinks
Maybe more than glancing
Shrug
Walk to bar
Sixth drink
Fifty year old somebody stranger
Shot
Tequila
Done
Don't see Maybe
Drink seven
Dance to classmates
They are kool-aid in tap water
This whole bar is us colored
But you can't see anyone you recognize
Dance
Somebody twirls you
Maybe the front door
Maybe exit
Line dancing now
Achy Breaky Heart
Right Vine
Brush
Forward Heel Touch
Forward Heel Touch
Back Toe Touch
Back Toe Touch
Left Vine
Quarter Turn
Left

          V.

You and Hacky Sack start a poetry journal. You and Maybe work at a renaissance faire. Your house has two beds. One for you. One for the men you're afraid to sleep with. On your twenty-second birthday you've still told neither of them a thing about your heart. They don't know your first real boyfriend died a month before you met them. They don't know that on the nights they don't sleep over you go online and fail to love anyone. You have failed so many people who came back.

You invite them both over for drinks and discover they went to high school together. Maybe thinks Hacky Sack is great. Hacky Sack tells you Maybe bullied him in high school. At least you think if they're both gay or bi or whatever anyone is they are unlikely to fuck each other and not you. You selfish. You stupid. Them straight. ish. But straight to you.

Maybe knows before you come out to him. Tries to fix you up with irritating gay friend. Apologizes for assuming all gay people would like all other gay people even though you haven't explicitly used the word gay just said that you loved him. He knew. 

You spend a month with Hacky Sack at a new college. He hasn't left you. He has moved. He sort of took you with him. Four hour trips twice a month. Peacocks in the schoolyard. Bad poetry. Terrible poetry. A girl in his class whose meter is so off you know Hacky Sack must love her. He loves her. She hates you. He loves you. But not like that. She hates you. Like that. She knows. He doesn't. She calls you faggot. Nobody calls you that. You don't even know how to react. They fight. You sleep in your car. He knocks on your window. You sleep in his room. She sleeps in her room. Nobody touches anyone. They break up.

She pregnant. They back together. They fuck. They fuck. They fuck. She confesses never pregnant. They fight. They break up. She pregnant. You call her liar. You misogynist. You never liked her. You sabotage. But no she not pregnant this time either. You drive home. He calls you. He drives to your home. You get high. You watch The Wizard Of Oz while listening to Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon. You cliche. Him cliche. You put your arm around him. He leans in to your arms. You happy. Him drive back to school. Him e-mail. Doesn't call you faggot. Implies it. Never speaks to you again.

Maybe calls. Drives to your home. Puts arms around you. Not into you. Friend. Offers to start bullying Hacky Sack for real. You laugh. At him. At self. At laughter.