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Self-Portrait with Spurs and Sulfur
Poems
Casey Thayer
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eBook - ePub
Self-Portrait with Spurs and Sulfur
Poems
Casey Thayer
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About This Book
Part fun-house hall of mirrors in its distorted and dizzying central narrative, part spaghetti western, and part prayer, Self-Portrait with Spurs and Sulfur is an exploration into the possibilities of storytelling. Through persona poems and odes, the collection argues that the muddier the narrative, the closer the story gets to truth.
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LetteraturaSubtopic
PoesiaI.
In which childhood is a horse on the Panhandle broken by a girl with a tattoo of wings on her back. First, a shotgun wedding, then the taming of snakes. With burrs in his boot, he sets fire to a field. They flee.
Self-Portrait as Saddle
What keeps you from slipping off the sway-
backed horse but me? I bear-hug
the palominoâs belly. I brace
every thundered hoofbeat, each breath
that batters her rib cage. I make the ride
endurable. Let me stirrup your rattlesnake
boots. Let me relive the rubdown
of your hands smoothing my swell,
the leather oil working my soft skin
softer. Lay me on a sawhorse for the night.
Weâll relive the tightening straps tomorrow,
your legs pinning my fenders. Weâll relive
the gallop another time. With cows milling dirt
in the creek, the horse hurtling through
the current, give up the reins for a desperate
grip on my pommel. Let me hold us together
through the burdock thistle and barbwire.
Each bump, a pain Iâll protect you from,
each bump that digs you deeper into me.
Learning Anatomy at the St. Stanislaus Dance
Appraisal, you called it, the way you stroked
the flanks of boys like a horse dealer keen
for a steal. You corralled them by their jeans
at the spring turnabout and saddle-broke
them in. I test-rode nearly everyone,
you said. Youâre the only one still here.
Fitted in my fatherâs suit, I let you steer
us to the gym floorâmy feet set to run,
my cowlick combed flatâas the violin
jerked out a rhythm with the bass and snare.
What animals we made on that floor, your hair
caught in my clip-on, your hands hog-tied in mine.
Sometime later, we lay in the field grass
so they couldnât find us. They called and called.
Samson Speaks
How this longing grabs me
by the groin: lonely devotion, black lake
a cratered cold sore made, the field
filled with strings. I take your song
in my mouth as the most intimate
naming, I cup your name on my tongue.
This intense fetish, my loins
afire, my wind, my wiry hair & you
pass out with your shirt off
your hip. Iâd rest my hand there.
This, the skin I audition for,
your hands nicked where the jackknife
bit back, this throat knotted,
this sick erotic. You undress
a cherry Starburst with your tongue
& I forget how to speak. You draw
your tongue across your cheek
to lick a line of blood & I forget
Iâm a man who canât protect himself
from himself. My poor soul, how could I
go on without song, my lone voice
in the forest, the birches bare as a rack
of picked-clean ribs, your body hidden
like a pinup in the folds of every reason
not to, every no. But I keep breathing
as if by living I can outlast desire.
Peach
Said he: this tiny backside,
this small ass crack or
miniature cleavage.
Cleaved in half he pulled meat
from bone I mean the pit.
Placed the lobe
of flesh in my mouth,
gifting it. A hinge of skin
flapped over my lip,
soft pulp, neatly bruised.
In the desert we hallucinate
for juice, for any food,
any life-bearing liquor like two fingers
of Jack. He licked salt from the back
of my neck to leave him even
more thirsty. He rebuked himself,
an honest sinner. Said I: even Jesus
was thus tested in the desert.
Said he: but your cutoff jeans,
daisy-printed push-up & Jesus
had angels to save him. I squished
a piece of peach in my teeth,
called my moon pelado,
that broken globe,
half a brain. Little pilgrim,
said he, give me the ge...