☀ Today's Poem: "8 . 18 . 20" Joyelle McSweeney

Why don't you rinse your blonde child's hair in dead champagne to
keep it gold, as they do in France?

Why don't you have every room done up in every color green? This
will take months, years, to collect, but it will be delightful—a mélange
of plants, green glass, green porcelains, and furniture covered in sad
greens, gay greens, clear, faded and poison greens?

—DIANE VREELAND, HARPER'S BAZAAR

Why don't you
stand before the door
black bows on your wrists
in one of two identical pairs of shoes
this one with rubber soles for wet days
any cobbler can do this
why don't you
palm frond, breadmold, emerald, seabladder,
filing cabinet, verdigris, eau du Nil—
this morning I stood before the door
I studied it like a riddle
the riddle was: When did I forget how to open doors
I carry a ring of keys like Bluebeard's bride
beerbottle, greengage, keylime
it is always tugging down my pockets
except when I wear a denim jacket!
with little rivets
that sing like birds in the eye
the keys are looking smaller than they did before
another riddle
each one intricate and baffling
I look closer and one bears the profile of the Royal Pavilion in
Brighton
even smaller than it did before
when i used to go there
i wore a half-slip for a skirt and my hair in artful knots
as memory hooks on to memory
the cortex darts with pins and knots
the doorknob is replaced with a skyknob
something like the handle on a tankard
but how do you turn a key in a mug
or turn the key in the sky
of course eventually i shove with my shoulder
and tumble into the house to do my chores
how can you
why don't you
in order to better concentrate
i decide to buy the milk later in the day
to clear time to write and now all i think about is milk
milk milk
i crawl all over the house looking for dirty bottles
rubber nipples and plastic collars
"like nebuchadnezzar"
i set em in the sink to further rot
mid-morning sun ticks across
the royal pavilion at brighton
a pier gently rots into the sea
and throws off a gas which heats the sky
when i was there
nothing but a half slip between me and the pier
and, contrariwise, my blackest, heaviest shoes,
a pigeon rotted rudely, exposing its chest
a fish rots from the head and a bird from the chest
quoth the pigeon
who were dead
what were being diagram'd there
above the pier
the vampire's house
rose skinny as himself and his bride
shouldering twin sons
one of whom would later fall to his death
from millstone to millstone
where the sea grinds the cliff
then they flew off to LA
why don't you
move to LA
traipse along a catwalk
above the sign
that tells you where you are
wash your face in it
why don't you
wash your dead child's face in champagne
i did wash her face in blonde
no more tears baby shampoo
to release the residue of tape
when it was too late
I had already learned the scent of her: a shock
of alcohol that shook the brain
like priests and goblins shake the pews with censers
scrabbling up the aisle towards the altar
there to deposit our eyes
but will we ever arrive
every thirty days i
receive a text from apple
urging me to delete the images
that eat my memory up
delete them, or I will
says the apple
I won't
i have my own
pursuits
i have my own
evil routes
i learned from reading a burning book
in a burning library
while the baby was alive
& J sang
the factory is closed
let's go to venice
ill dress you in white denim
with rivets to sing
i made that last part up
je voudrais
aller à venise
and i would like
to sing it now
i'm singing it now
from the lip
of the throat-decaying pier
you can hear it
wing into the air
baby's breath
on every sanitized hand
look angel:
pass over, or don't
i don't care
i'll just stand here on the threshold
feel the wind you bear in your ratwings
rinse my hair
i can't find the door
i can't open it
i can't remember how doors work
blow the house down
eat the door
green buckle, green udder
green that freckles the gravestones
eats the carbon diox
with green teeth
chlorophyll endorphin
ebony green
as weeds in the gutter
wave from the second floor
why
why don't you
claim every green as yours