Farmer / Videogame
I’m a farmer and my dentist has a videogame
his son likes to play in the Tesla to simulate
agriculture. I’m reading that one Wendell Berry
book to have an opinion on it when men ask
me, which they always do. I like it more than
I thought I would, dislike it just as much. I hate
making small talk about being a poet. The dental
hygienist asks if I know Sylvia Plath, have I read
The Bell Jar. I have, and I like the part about
the telephone poles extending indefinitely like
a life. Now I’m having existential dread on shitty
vinyl with the sunglasses on that the hygienist
called my “eye protectors.” The light is a kind of jar
I’m kept under. I have no cavity. I have only been
grinding holes into my teeth. Generally I am good
at being happy, even if the idea of tooth holes
goes on and on like the telephone poles, grind
and fill. Obviously I will get an over the counter
guard, not a custom one, but still, the cycle continues
with pits in the plastic barrier. In the videogame,
you can marry Shane, but you’ll have to fix him.
It’s better to marry Leah, who can fix herself.
◆ ◆ ◆
Translator (Delivery Truck Driver)
His name was Michael —
the man in the basement
of the church where I went
to use the bathroom. We
would talk about ancient
poetry, our shared love
of David Hinton’s Chinese
translations. I rushed
our conversations in my
mid-work day frenzy, especially
when they became a source
of joy. I’d been up since dark
working a twelve before
choosing, coolly, to run
the sixteen miles home. That
spring, the big truck kept
breaking down. I was ashamed
to need my co-worker Adam’s
help lifting cab from chassis. First
the transmission fluid flowed
dark red. Then the gaskets
blew. I had to call my boss
from the side of the highway,
yelling over the roar. Michael said
I was a vegetable translator:
transladar — to move from place
to place. I grew adept at
prolonging the dullness
of gas station bathrooms. Then Dove
rode with me one morning
on her way to somewhere
else. She said when she first met me
she thought I was too beautiful
for Jamie but then she thought
he’s beautiful too, maybe
more so. I drove with my eyes
into the sun. The last time
I saw her, I let her out at the post
office from a shared front seat
while Jamie drove. She left her
unneeded, uncooked rice at my
door. I had met her mid-frost,
taught her to prune grapes. By fruit
she was gone. The cruelest
thing I did in a spring of cruel
things was refuse to touch
the puffy hand of the man to whom
I gave cash for his food stamp
coins. When Dove and I counted
everything we’d been addicted to
my list was low-substance. But
I was so stupid sad in the thaw
because of C’s death I kept asking
people I barely knew to give me
ecstasy. Michael gave me a book
of art under the Soviet Union,
and another of potato famine
paintings. The gift was to stop
feeling so sorry for myself. He said
Li Po drowned drunk, swimming
to the moon. Jeff Buckley
too. I listened to them both
that spring when it rained
so hard every wheel of the truck
lost traction. Left a moon mark
silver, round on the road. Then
it was the end of summer and I
was twenty-five. Older nearly
than the one who had died.
Dove was in Greece, and called
me and Jamie from time
to time. I left Michael
without saying goodbye.