No Crib for His Bed

If you were born today, we'd kill you by age eight. —Jim Adkins

So God decided to wait a couple thousand years before having children.
He came down sometime in March looking for a virgin.
Found some chick named Mary from Massachusetts.
She said she wouldn’t mind carrying His child.
She went to the doctor for the first few checkups.
She even bought a crib.
But then her boyfriend got upset.
Her parents weren’t too sure about the whole thing.
So she changed her mind.
She just couldn’t take it.
She knelt down and asked that He let this cup pass from her.
But of course, that wasn’t His will.

So one spring morning on a
cold metal slab, she sat down.
And as a doctor reached his small, sturdy hand
inside her to rip Him from a uterus,
to cut that cord, to separate
mother and child,
church and state,
savior and world,
we all felt His pain.
We all fell on our face.

A few minutes later, the doctor removed his gloves,
wrote Mary a prescription.
And with the death of nothing but
a few cells, the little Lord Jesus lay down his sweet head.

You Killed My Gerbil

My friends look at me like I’m inhumane
when I tell them its easy to get rid of stray cats—
shove them into a gunnysack and toss it into a river.
Or when I talk about shoveling up half-digested grass from
a fat heifer after its been
shot and gutted, each stomach hollowed out by a butcher.
They cringe when I talk about the day
you killed my gerbil,
picking him up by his furry, grey tail and
banging his small body against the wall.
One swift whack.
I tell them Smoky had gone crazy,
cannibalistic. He had eaten three gerbils.
He had bit the flap of flesh
between my forefinger and thumb.

I remember one day in the basement of our old house,
scavenging the cubbies in the storage room.
We uncovered your rock collection.
Geodes the size of my skull you had split in half
with a giant hammer to reveal the
sharp, shiny, clear and purple crystals inside.
In the same box I caught a quick glimpse of your other collection.
At first, I thought they were
long, skinny marshmallows.
You told me how when you were younger
you would go hiking with your friends.
You would each take a shovel,
and you would see who came back with the most rattles.
You told me that as long as you snuck up from behind,
you always had plenty of time to slice the snake in half
before he even knew you were there.
It’s always better to slice as close to the head as possible.
Then you would hack off the rattle and bury it in your pocket.
You came in second only once.
I looked up at the rocks, the rattles, your wrinkled hands.
I looked down into the shoebox containing the
few measly, lifeless pebbles
I had begun to collect.
As I clenched a rattle between my palm and my
long, skinny fingers,
I couldn’t wait to break them all open, to see if maybe,
there were crystals inside, just waiting to be discovered.

When my friends give me that look of disgust,
the one I never gave you,
I tell them there was really nothing else you could have done.
Smoky deserved it.
I tell them that I was,
and still am, glad you killed him.
What I don’t tell them is that as I watched you
dig a hole for him in the back yard
the blood still dripped from the two deep
holes in my hand.

College Ruled

I keep you in a green spiral notebook
in the bottom drawer of my dresser.
I don’t ever open you, but I know you’re there.
I can hear you whisper every time the drawer is left open.
I close my eyes and see the thin blue lines and bold black letters
etched into your pale white skin.
Each page of you contains a single sentence,
in your own handwriting,
beginning with the words
I love you because
The reasons on each page are varied, concrete, convincing.
Farther down the page, another sentence in my own hand,
a lie, beginning with the words
I love myself because
The reasons here are varied, faint, forced.
And between the lines, each page contains
A silent sentence, not yet written, beginning with the words
I cannot love you because
The reason is short, simple, always the same.
I know it’s hard to read.
It’s even harder to write.
That’s why I never have.
But one day, I will open you up.
I will hold you down.
I will take a red pen, grip it
tightly in my right hand.
I will press its ballpoint firmly
against the bottom line of your very last page,
and as the pen moves across the page,
you will feel it in your fingers and in your feet.
As I press harder and harder,
it will hurt more and more.
Deeper inside you,
your throat and your thighs.
And you will know that I am writing again.
You will know that
it hurts me too.
When I am finished, the pain will stop.
I will set the pen down on the desk.
I will close you, turn around and place you back in the drawer.
And as the words bleed through to every page,
I hope that wherever you are, you will
walk to a dresser, open the bottom drawer,
And listen as I whisper.
I pray that you will peruse the lines on your skin, as
the words slowly appear, as the bottom line forever reads
I’m sorry

Festival City, USA

I went to Braun Books
Above the back door—God's hand,
reaching as I read.

Spring break of '06—
A foot and a half of snow.
Only in cedar.

Canyon Park is fun.
But at night, the cops will come
and kick you out—RUN!

Hey, it’s November.
Let’s go to the Shell station.
Free soda means good times.

A "True T-Bird"
Does it count if she's a witch—
The kind that casts spells?

Mmmm. Costa Vida.
Mexican food for surfers.
Good horchata there.

Tunnel—underground
It's real scary in the dark.
AAAAAAAHHHHHH! (Please hold scream for 5 syllables)

Subway, Subway, Sub-
way, Subway. Build one more. Quick!
Maverik’s catching up.

Check It

Call me narcissistic, but these are my two new favorite websites:

Sigma Tau Delta and The Atlantic Monthly.

Smile

It is 1:30 pm and
I just brushed my teeth
for the third time today.
I have this obsession.
With my teeth.
When they don’t feel clean,
It is impossible
for me
to think about anything else.
I buy my toothbrushes in bulk.
I keep extras at my friends’ houses.
Just in case.
When I can’t brush after lunch,
I cannot concentrate in class,
all I can do is run my tongue
along my incisors
over and over,
for hours.
Cringing at their
grimy, plaquey texture.

My father has had dentures for thirty-nine years.
He says
they pulled his teeth out
one by one
with an old pair of pliers.
He says
it wasn’t the beer stains,
it wasn’t the rotting
brought on by all those cigarettes he used to puff.
He says
it was because he never
brushed his teeth enough,
especially before he went to bed.
When I was seven,
he told me
if I ever went to bed
without brushing,
the plaque would swim through my mouth,
grind away the enamel on my molars,
eat their way through my gums.
Take away my little white smile
while I slept.
He reached into his mouth, pulled out his
top row of teeth.
He held up what, in his mouth, had been a
perfect set of pearly whites.
But sitting there in his hand,
upside-down,
dripping with saliva and spit,
they were nothing but the
porcelain pickets of a freshly-painted fence.
He smiled at me without those teeth and he sighed.
Is this the kind of mouth you want?
I shook my head.
I knew he was referring to the mouth on his face,
but I could not take my eyes off of the one in his hand.
It’s jagged little pickets were smiling at me too.

Sixteen years later,
and I still can’t look away.
I cannot recall a single night since I was seven
when I have not brushed my teeth before going to bed.
But sometimes, in the middle of the day,
when I try to take a nap,
I will lie awake in bed,
my eyes closed, unable to sleep.
I see that hand,
The pearls, the picket fence
sitting there in my father’s palm.
Smiling, laughing, chattering away at me.
Mouthing the words.
Telling me I had better not fall asleep
without brushing,
because if I do, those plaques will come
and they will devour my mouth.
If I do, I will wake up an hour later with
yellow teeth.
Gums full of holes.
A rotten mouth.
A smile like my father’s.

RED

Behind my house there is a rickety wooden garage.
Its walls are made of railroad ties.
It is held up by two long poles because
it leans to the North and has fallen over twice.
Inside sits a Massey-Ferguson tractor
that has been in my family for generations.
It used to be red, but has long since faded to a rusty pink.

My father’s father was apparently a farmer, just like his father,
and his father, and his father.
Just like my father.
A full line of Gurneys
plowing dirt
cultivating land
planting seed
fertilizing fields
weeding rows of corn
cutting acres and acres and acres of green grass
on that same red Massey-Ferguson tractor.
Each year, come harvest time,
I can see them all,
a patriarchal line of faceless men
with names I have heard but a few times:
Oscar Leslie, William Francis, and John,
riding there
behind my father
on that tractor
calling me, beckoning me to join them.
To lift a bale of hay, place it on the wagon,
help them stack their crop
behind my house,
where it will stay until winter.
Then when it is too cold for the earth to do her own work,
they will use it to sustain the lives
of beasts they will later kill.

My sister now lives on 500 West
in the house my mother grew up in.
The house has been gutted twice, expanded, remodeled, excavated,
painted, stuccoed, covered in rock.
But at its core is a tiny adobe foundation made of red brick.

My mother’s father was once a sheepherder.
But when my mother was only two,
he gave up his ranch
in Panguitch to move his family to Lehi.
Only God knows why.
When they got here, he built them
a red adobe brick house to live in.
With time, the red of those bricks had faded.
And when I was only two,
my grandmother ordered
that the house be repainted.
Only she knows why.
My mother, my aunts, and my uncle,
My father, my sisters, and my brother
took paintbrushes and rollers and they coated that house
with the brightest red paint I have ever seen.
The pigment sunk deep into the thirsty adobe bricks,
and when they had finished, I looked
at that house with my two-year-old eyes
and saw a giant candy apple.
I watched as
the ghost of my grandfather, Glen Orton,
walked across the lawn and picked it up
as if he were plucking it from a tree.
He opened his wide mouth and swallowed
that candy-apple house in a single bite.
When he had finished, he winked at my grandmother,
and he was gone.

Each time I pass that old rickety shed behind my house
I hear whispers, the voices of two men
I have never met.
Oscar and Glen.
They tell me
to repaint my sister’s house,
They tell me
to keep driving that tractor,
to keep cutting the grass behind my house,
to keep spilling the blood of our cattle,
They tell me
to spread that blood all over the Massey-Ferguson,
to make that tractor red again.
Because for some reason,
they expect me to keep them alive.

My Father's Feet

My father’s feet are not sixty-nine years old.
Somehow they are at least thirty years younger than
the rest of him.
My father’s feet have carried him
up and down the railroad tracks by our house,
through his fields of wheat and corn and hay,
along the Jordan River and the old Willow Creek,
up Bald Mountain,
across the countless dirt roads of his youth,
and the paved streets of old age.

Every morning for as long as I can remember
my father has gripped in his right hand,
an old walking stick
that he cut
from a willow in our back yard.
He takes that stick
and he follows those feet.
I am certain those feet can walk on their own,
and that they alone know the way.
My father could take that
morning walk with his eyes closed.
When he returns home,
he removes his shoes, but not his socks, and
he immediately slides those feet into a pair of brown slippers.

I have seen
my father’s bare feet
only a few times.
On top they are pale. White.
Like a ghost, a spiritual apparition.
They draw my eyes toward the ground,
haunting my thoughts,
holding me there.
Lost in their trance, I cannot look away.
Those feet are not wrinkled.
They are not shriveled or discolored.
While the rest of my father has aged,
His feet have remained untouched.
Time has simply never stooped that low.
The bottoms are pruny. Pink.
I imagine they feel just as soft, just as smooth
as they did the day he was born.
They are pure, unblemished.
Not a callous or a scar.
No warts.
They never hurt.
The skin is never dry.

My father’s feet are his most protected and prized possession.
They are what hold him to the ground.
They are his constant movement,
his road to change,
his ever-increasing steady pace.
They are the driving force behind his dark desires.
Those feet are what keep my father alive.

On Writing

When I grow up, I wanna be
just like Steve.
Because let’s face it, I can’t write
worth a shit either.
You see, with Steve it’s all about
rabid dogs, creepy clowns, scary shit,
shitty shit.
He can’t write anything else.
And I sure can’t write anything else.
I wouldn’t know an original idea if it
hit me over the head
with a shovel.
You see, I can’t write because
every word that comes out of this pen is
Dad
line break
Dad
Ex-girlfriend
Dad
line break
You.
I mean, who farted right?
I’m so sick of writing about my ex-girlfriend.
I’m so sick of writing about my dad.
And I am so fucking sick of writing about you.
But the only decent thing I can write is you.
So I’ll keep going.
Just like the King.
Cliché, after cliché, after cliché…
Broken heart, after poor family relationship, after romantic obsession…
Schizo writer, after haunted mansion, after axe-murderer…
Maybe some day one of us will come up with something new.
Because come on Steve, pig’s blood at the prom?
Seriously?
It’s been done.

My Favorite Tie

My favorite thing about Sunday
is picking out a tie for church.
I have just under ninety of them.
A purple one with Aztec warriors on it.
One that’s got blue and white stripes
that I bought at a yard sale in California.
A yellow one from my cousin’s wedding.
Some of my older ones have cartoon characters on them.
Scooby Doo, that cucumber from Veggie Tales.
I even have a black one with the red letters
AFI patched on it.
Of these eighty some odd ties,
I probably wear about ten.
But before I can make any sort of decision,
I have to look at every last one of them.

A little over two years ago
a girl sent me a package for my birthday.
The package was late because
she had forgotten when my birthday actually was.
But there were four ties in that box,
so I quickly forgave her.
Two of those ties were ugly.
The other two were brown.
One had a bunch of little red moose on it.
And the other had tan stripes.
This brown tie with tan stripes has been my favorite ever since.

My tie collection has become so big,
I had to get me one of those
electric tie-holder things
that only weirdoes have.
It’s actually pretty cool, because I can
push a button and watch as
red and blue and green and grey
and pink and purple and white
and brown and black and orange
ties go whizzing past me in a circular motion.
Sometimes choosing a tie is enough to make me dizzy.
It’s almost always enough to make me late.

So this girl,
the one that sent me the ties,
I loved her.
I was thinking marriage.
She loved me too, but
she was thinking Master’s Degree.
I told her to go; I wanted her to be happy.
So after a short-lived long-distance
relationship,
She moved to France to earn her piece of paper.
She’s in Ohio now, finishing up her Master’s there.
I called her last Saturday.
She was in a department store.
So glad I called.
She was picking out a Valentine’s Day present for her boyfriend,
and she didn’t have a clue what to get him.
I make a few suggestions.
A shirt—Out.
She just got him one for his birthday.
A CD?—Nope.
Movie?—Nah.
A ridiculous amount of heart shaped chocolate—Out.
He’s diabetic.
I suggest some sugar-free stuff.
Tell her to give him the sugar later.
She laughs.
Then she sees the ties.
She says he just got a new suit,
so that would be perfect.
We decide on a blue one, and she heads for the checkout.
On the way she tells me that
she’s never bought a tie for anyone but me.
I tell her to take it back, to buy him another shirt.
She laughs again, but this time
I’m not joking.
I want to know that I still have that part of her.
Just that one little part.
The part that buys ties.
She gets to the check stand and says she has to go.
Thanks for your help, she says. I love you. Goodbye.

The next morning, I watch as my ties go around and around.
They seem to fly right out of the closet, encircling me
in a world of insecurity.
I know which tie I want, but I can’t just pick it out.
So I wait for it to come around again and again and again.
Finally I reach out and grab the brown tie with the tan stripes.
As I slowly tie it around my neck,
I look in the mirror and I see that I am wearing
someone else’s favorite tie.