Self-Portrait with Spurs and Sulfur

Poems

Casey Thayer

• Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9780826337085
• Topic: Letteratura
• Subtopic: Poesia

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.

I.

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 palomino’s 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.

We’ll relive the tightening straps tomorrow,

your legs pinning my fenders. We’ll 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 I’ll 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. You’re the only one still here.

Fitted in my father’s suit, I let you steer

us to the gym floor—my feet set to run,

my cowlick combed flat—as 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 couldn’t 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. I’d 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

I’m a man who can’t 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...