Issue 17, April 1998
Jonathan Waterbury - Two Poems

And the guy was caught,
after a murder, another rape.
And this was after the arson
and that killed another.

His mind eaten by stolen checks
in boxes, spilling accelerant, correct?
on the complex stairs.

And the simple glare of
the wrecking mind.
And the killing thief, raping
and the tight, mute stance.

And I knew that sob, that half choke
would come from my love
down the hall as I told the guests.

But it was a still new sound.
It stopped me as she heard
about the burned legs,

the burned legs,
removed from her friend
to keep them from killing her,
and her fingers melted together,

her legs falling away
and her fingers melting together
into all our future.

Here is this olive, so.

Here are your fingers
slipping along the oil
along the brine by the skin
the skin the other olives there.

Here is the touch and lift
the place the pool the oil
the placing and the knife.

Here is the black and the small cut
the slight peel the pit and
the patient brown and the wrinkled black.

Here are your slow thoughts
your afternoons your fingers.

And here is this long phrase this olive
will put in no tongue but may play
as a new music.