{"id":6195,"date":"2013-10-31T00:00:03","date_gmt":"2013-10-31T04:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gadflyonline.com\/home\/?p=6195"},"modified":"2013-10-31T10:04:19","modified_gmt":"2013-10-31T14:04:19","slug":"music-lessons-and-other-poems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/music-lessons-and-other-poems\/","title":{"rendered":"Music Lessons and Other Poems"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\"PoemsRebecca\"<\/a><\/p>\n

She<\/b>(49), He (17)<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

“I\u00a0<\/i>am Young and ye are very Old wherefore I was afraid”<\/i><\/p>\n

–Job 32:6<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Slouched in the doorframe:<\/p>\n

foliage of hair all \u00a0unwound<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

and curious, the lips insufferable,<\/p>\n

hands two dumb animals\u2014you\u2019re anxious\u2014<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Excuse me. \u00a0You stand on all I can<\/p>\n

give:\u00a0 \u00a0the undrawn line between there<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

and here. The grotesque cluster<\/p>\n

of numbers invading the space between<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

two and one. \u00a0Negatives. \u00a0Accept<\/p>\n

these gifts. \u00a0Easier when we were together<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

in one body, \u00a0better when my hands<\/p>\n

settled over your shrouded head like stars.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

You were almost visible then and bald<\/p>\n

like a little old man. \u00a0Eventually the satin<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

dome of my stomach stretched and broke;<\/p>\n

tufts of hair sprang from the lunar fabric of<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

your skull.\u00a0 \u00a0Oh god, I admit it,<\/p>\n

I\u2019m scared. \u00a0How defiant your hair!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

How defiant the fingers, \u00a0bouquet of teeth,<\/p>\n

finite kneecaps, chin and elbows,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

defiant your neck, man\u2019s neck. \u00a0Man,<\/p>\n

every moment you\u2019re getting more and more born.<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I can\u2019t quite stand it. But there you are,<\/p>\n

endless torrent of your figure hunched<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

skinny at the space between entrance<\/p>\n

and exit\u2014vulnerable, flagrant\u2014<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Accept these gifts, \u00a0impossible gifts.<\/p>\n

I ask you now only for time,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

and time, and time. \u00a0Blunt solstice<\/p>\n

of bodies, two, defiant,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

impossible: \u00a0untangle yourself<\/p>\n

from the constellation of my bones.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

Music Lessons<\/strong><\/p>\n

Listen.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Believe me,<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

I know you have stood naked and<\/p>\n

proud as children in the hallway of endless gawking men.\u00a0 Belipsticked. Derobed.<\/p>\n

Named shameless. You have gnawed all anxious<\/p>\n

at the ten lonely knobs of your knuckles in the wings of night\u2019s unknowable stage: muted, then commanded:<\/p>\n

Perform. Sing.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Oh, you. I know you.<\/p>\n

I know this isn\u2019t easy. Listen,<\/p>\n

it\u2019ll happen: A boy will pluck you like something ripe from the insistent crowd. Trust me: his fingers<\/p>\n

are brilliant.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 He will sit<\/p>\n

cross-legged and unmoving on your chest. He will be earth-heavy. Do not pretend he doesn\u2019t hurt.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Do not be scared.<\/p>\n

This is how men do when they are lonely and embarrassed.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He will refuse to move. Move him first. Grab<\/p>\n

tight the handles of his bowed shoulders, drag<\/p>\n

the pit of his chest to your head, crack<\/p>\n

open the<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

hot shell of his throat\u2014this won\u2019t be easy\u2014isn\u2019t<\/p>\n

\u2014yes\u2014do it\u2014open your ears like a prayer, oh, listen.<\/p>\n

This is the second coming of something good.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There\u2019s a rain behind the sternum,<\/p>\n

a fat drumming jailed by ribcage. This is his heartbeat.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It is a song<\/p>\n

he will teach you if you touch him, all soft. Listen. Try it. Tell me I\u2019m wrong.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

Still Life: Breakfast With Grandmother<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Her hands are dried fruit on the table<\/p>\n

before the old woman\u2019s altar of Sunday\u2019s paper.<\/p>\n

She tells me\u2014mouth a pressed flower,<\/p>\n

throat laced with underwater<\/p>\n

veins, straining, she tells me<\/p>\n

that I wear this dress the way it\u2019s supposed<\/i><\/p>\n

to be worn. <\/i>This is because I am thin.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

She hasn\u2019t worn a dress since<\/p>\n

her sixty-third birthday, a night she<\/p>\n

begged for wine and fell asleep empty.<\/p>\n

Her body\u2019s full of water now, swollen<\/p>\n

and leather-coated. She is heavy;<\/p>\n

she is full of too much.<\/p>\n

Does she beg for death like wine?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Does she beg for death like wine,<\/p>\n

my god\u2014this is only breakfast. Death\u2019s<\/p>\n

a heavy word. Newspaper, eggs, toast,<\/p>\n

paper napkins\u2014the old peaches in the bowl<\/p>\n

between us are terrifying.<\/p>\n

I suppose there\u2019s a point when it gets easy, the dying:<\/p>\n

cool and simple as undressing, untying,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

unlacing all that superfluous skin and shining<\/p>\n

like the gentle blue surface of morning.<\/p>\n

No shame in pouring<\/p>\n

into heaven, where everything fits. Dorothy,<\/p>\n

I am your girl-woman, woven<\/p>\n

of the hair, the cotton, the space between<\/p>\n

your daughter\u2019s humble breasts.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I am girl-woman; I am beanpole-thin.<\/p>\n

Like a bullet I wear this dress.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Germinal:<\/strong><\/p>\n

(after Michelle Knight)<\/p>\n

If she cannot have this baby you also will die.<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The mottled hands give no rope–<\/p>\n

untied, tense menagerie of fist & fingers<\/p>\n

unraveling before gateway of thighs, thighs:<\/p>\n

If she cannot have this baby you also will die<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This is instinctual, count your curses like<\/p>\n

gifts. Remember: cup first the soft head, then neck,<\/p>\n

drum of stomach. Unbury the mouth, father\u2019s eyes:<\/p>\n

If she cannot have this baby you also will die<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

No throat deep as youth. You would know.<\/p>\n

Ten years ago braces, apples, your birthstone,<\/p>\n

archipelago of life. He giveth, he taketh\u2014too familiar,<\/p>\n

the aortal cries: if she cannot<\/i><\/p>\n

have this baby you also will die<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

No small price for this, the new life\u2014muted<\/p>\n

ligature, upper lip, miniscule & precise. Small body<\/p>\n

chained to smaller body. Even now, cut these ties.<\/p>\n

If she cannot have this<\/i>—<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

**<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I need not mention womb, contusions,<\/p>\n

a silent house in Ohio. Forget captive.<\/i><\/p>\n

Midwife? Never.<\/p>\n

Remember, you escaped with a silence even<\/p>\n

the sky cannot tie down— alive & fullgrown &<\/p>\n

chained to nothing.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

Rebecca Beauchamp is a fan of Rilke, cats in cowboy outfits, and top-40 radio hits. Influences include Dickinson, Baudelaire, and Bidart, but mostly her Australian shepherd, Hurley. She’s an undergraduate studying Creative Writing at the University of Virginia but neophyte, she is not: she won a statewide poetry contest in the second grade for (what she believes to be) her magnum opus, ‘The Cat’ (a memorable line being ‘The cat, the cat, quiet as can go\/ I know he knows something that you don’t know.’) and ever since then she’s been writing nonstop. In D.C. she came into her own as a spoken word poet, performing at numerous venues in the Metro\/DC area. Our poet began her collegiate journey at Virginia Tech, where her work was selected for the school’s literary festival, undergraduate research conference, and won the English department’s annual prize in poetry. Has she been published in The oh-so-estimable New Yorker? Has she been in the running for the Nobel Prize in Literature? Well, no. Not yet. She does, however, know how to whistle every recorded Led Zeppelin guitar solo and makes a mean blueberry pie.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rebecca Beauchamp is a fan of Rilke, cats in cowboy outfits, and top-40 radio hits. Influences include Dickinson, Baudelaire, and Bidart, but mostly her Australian shepherd, Hurley. She’s an undergraduate studying Creative Writing at the University of Virginia but neophyte, she is not: she won a statewide poetry contest in the second grade for (what she believes to be) her magnum opus, ‘The Cat’ (a memorable line being ‘The cat, the cat, quiet as can go\/ I know he knows something that you don’t know.’) and ever since then she’s been writing nonstop. <\/p>\n

READ MORE.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":169,"featured_media":6299,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,218,219,199],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6195"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/169"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6195"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6195\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6302,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6195\/revisions\/6302"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}