Mike Young

 

THE AGE OF THE TIRE BOAT

You are not the lasting tar pits or the pollen in the glass. You who opened Skoal beside the craters and the bucks, who spent a lot of quarters on the Feather Falling slots, who opening the mayonnaise elected not to think of what you'd thought about in fever, near junipers, near feverish junipers and jumping, giving up on fording to jump among the rocks. Who carried sluices and train tickets. I left my sunglasses in your woodshed can I get them in the morning. You are not the morning when you waded on a shelled out Honda through the water that was cold. You are not the nickels that you licked atop the bridge, ear to the rails and the lash of the whistle, not too far above the crayoned hearts. You are not the paper mills or granite mines in which you punched, punched out, sucker punched, Kool-Aid punch and rum, slightly tipsy saying things about the rice.

 

 

THE AGE OF THE TIRE BOAT

You are not the dam that tucks the water in the lake. You are not the backhoe that my uncle drove. You are not the California poppies that my uncle drove in buckets to the lake. You are not endangered in the classic sense, but I saw you give the ointment to your cousin at the rink. I saw you in the snow outside the diner outside Dunsmuir, frying all the ham hock for the glugged of the 5, where you slept in the bathtub, in a red hat, in the white habit of a dream in December, munching on the radio, opening the Skoal, ferrying the truckers through the blame accorded snow. You are not Lyle Lovett come among his tenants with a lamp. You are not in all the boxing in the basement of the church, parched, fleas in your teeth. You are not the echinacea or the cancer. Now you're both. Congratulations. You are still the awesome handjob that you gave in Hunter's truck. But now you've been the mug shots of the teeth after the meth, been serenaded by "well, okay, I think I'll give myself another chance," been robbed with a hair dryer at AM-PM, been stabbed in the shoulder dealing cough syrup to fifth graders, been Ben when asked for your first name by cops, and also: Eduardo. You are not the Marlboros in transit on the sly, inside your older brother's coat, Wayne's parka, Skylar's Wayne, yeah, Tristina's Wayne, yeah, that Wayne, no, that way. I don't know officer; we're just skateboarders. Skate or die.

 

 

THE AGE OF THE TIRE BOAT

You are not dying. You are not relaxed. You left your sunglasses outside atop the swamp cooler in August, and now you've got a fever but I think you'll need a ladder. You left the cockroaches in the medicine cabinet. You left your spaghetti in the bathtub where you slept. You came across the Boy Scouts on their pews inside the woods, what for, hi there, to arrest the pews and burn the pews, gathering and burning all the pews, to cook your bacon, thank you. You are not the note we left appreciating God. You are not the tire swing abandoned in the winter. You are not the census that you answered very carefully: of the gold chink, of the sluices, near junipers, of the tar pits, with the cedarwood pianos and the Chesterfield aunts, in the Yreka bakery and other lonely palindromes, of the lye and Sudafed inside your mother's swollen warts, up in the newer casinos to uproot the holler, of the touched asleep in corduroy upon the courthouse steps. You are here to swear a kind of throat. You are saving all the names inside your plutocratic wrists. You are worshiping embarrassed all the dead and skanky dead. You are taking off your sunglasses in barns and doublewides. You are digging up the graves beside the cannery, looking for your sunglasses.

 

 

THE AGE OF THE TIRE BOAT

You are not the boxes of the bees tamed for the almonds. You are not the squirrel in the breaker room. You are not the soldier gone allergic to the sun, whispering it's bullshit to his daughter on the phone, climbing up the marquee now to swallow all the rain. Nor all of the linoleum or menthol or asbestos. Babe is not the fairy lanterns, fiddlenecks, or thugs. I saw you in a shopping cart you'd duct-taped to the rails. With a frog inside your holster walking slowly in the rain. Down Feather River Boulevard. Down your sister's former name. If I go missing at the diner, then I stole a semi truck. You are not the God that we encouraged on the lake, nor the cataracts of lightning, water gone electric, all a clunky wish for death.

 

 

THE AGE OF THE TIRE BOAT

You are not the lack of ideology we chased just like a wedding dress. Man is this an accent or a train. Every whistle brays to a conductor's lonely wife. But is the whistle just itself, is just a pierce of pitch itself and is the landlord up? Someone tell the landlord that the whistle's faking it. Tell me why the lonely always worship all the trains. You are not the light which runs the length of all the rails. Which you are not and which is light that's lonely for a jack. Wheat thins and deer jerky, still embarrassed now to love to be convinced by all the prayers. I wrote AM-PM and Chevron on strips of fortune cookie paper and made you close your eyes and then I laid them on your tongue and then we fucked inside the bathtub then we threw it in the lake. You are not the stolen shit we tithed unto the lake. All you want to do is feel things. Beneath the snow. Babe is this a parking lot that came inside my mouth? You know the lady at the Salvation Army wouldn't sell me those sunglasses at first, she said they were her boyfriend's, he fled for the Ozarks in September with her Bluetooth, promising to steal her a motorcycle in Eureka Springs, maybe Jesus, the tall one, plaster of Paris, now smell those sunglasses and tell them that they're not my boyfriend's. You are not her boyfriend since you're not a snowman, right?

 

 

THE AGE OF THE TIRE BOAT

You are not your prescriptions or not predestination or not what you don't believe just because you don't believe in it. You have gone to find the cure inside the granite mines and punched, slightly tipsy, saying all the beatific things about the rice. Now you've been caught scaling the dam, been left a bottle of Four Roses on the nightstand and a coupon for In-And-Out Burger, out in the morning, out in the poppies that my uncle drove in buckets to the lake. You are not the one who found your sunglasses inside the bathroom at the rink. You answered very carefully: I left the woodshed with an almond in my pocket, I did not draw my heart in crayon, I've never seen you before, fed you ham hock, or let you sleep beside me in the snow. You are not okay. You are hitching a ride on the green bridge wearing only a habit. You are serving all the drinks to every soldier going blind. If I cut you open, would I find the stolen throats? God doesn't care about the kittens in the SYSCO box. God isn't there on the Greyhound through the snow. God is not a fireman. We are not God's tattoos. No one sleeps beneath the train except the light. God will never cure himself of how the whistle doesn't stay. Hock all your tobacco on the pillow when you go. We're buried in the lake and touching just to last. The silt's between my fingers now and now it's in your teeth.

 

 

 

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Mike Young is the author of the poetry collection We Are All Good If They Try Hard Enough (Publishing Genius 2010), the story collection Look! Look! Feathers (Word Riot Press 2010), and the chapbook MC Oroville's Answering Machine (Transmission Press 2009). He co-edits NOÖ Journal and Magic Helicopter Press. He lives in Massachusetts and at http://mikeayoung.blogspot.com.