2000 Deciduous Trees : Memories of a Zine (9781937316051) by Nath Jones Page A
Authors: Nath Jones
Tags: Millennium, female author, zine, midwest punk, y2k, female stories, midwest stories, purdue, illinois poets, college fiction, female soldier, female fiction, college confession
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just
another beautiful moment. Very similar to other days' moments. No
need to laugh or cry, necessarily. So I was trying not to trip. I
was staring at the base of the microphone, and I was hoping so
hard, if God were in the room, that whatever they needed would
last.
But then I began to read, and it went
well.
For your voice is sweet and your face is
beautiful…love is strong as death, jealousy relentless as Sheol.
The flash of it is a flash of fire, a flame of the Lord himself.
Love no flood can quench, no torrents drown.
And I know her grandfather was there, where
they were kneeling, where he had died. And other weddings and other
moments were there. Weighing them safely. Tradition. Precedence.
And I was glad just to stare at the microphone momentarily and pray
for it all.
The two of them kneeling together, too
excited and preoccupied with routine ritual to hear anything new in
the old words, and the six-foot-six priest, and the altar girls
wearing their dirty tennis shoes and their middle school faces, and
more than enough of us under the beams willing to witness that Love
is strong as Death. And to know it's possible to invite a God who
says, periodically, "Set me like a seal on your heart."
DISSATISFACTION
a not-really poem for Dawn and the rest of
us
What do I love when I see you beside me—not
in any remembered nakedness, not stoking some old flame, but right
now—in the football stadium on the way up these concrete
stairs?
There's a long way between you and me and
the rest of us. And I'm sorry for knead-loving you. Vortex nights
get dungeon dark, maze crazed, and I can't believe how lifted and
lurched with-you I was, how clouds shook the baby.
Neglected? Who's not? Give me precious seams
of history to run my fingers down. Give me something to suck. Give
me time.
He's kissing and calling and such easy
support. I'm holding him back but pillows can't suffocate the
need-nights. And it doesn’t matter if I want to rush through you
not to plunge, touch, down under him.
Because he’s here and he's asking and he's
telling me something most comfortable. How can you let me believe
any of it?
I guess I could just tell him, “Maybe not,”
if you weren't so far away.
That's it, isn't it? So don’t bother to
swell me up temporary whole with your empty undoing and tomorrow
promises.
He’s watching. He wants me. You don’t. He
needs me. You don't. He'll move on without me and you won't.
So fine. If I kiss you on your, "Can't you
give me," lips will you go away? Will you leave me alone tonight
and tomorrow. If I lie cruel with you and don't get in the way will
you promise not to call from your, "I'm late. I'm sorry,"
world?
And if I die here sadly in your
give-me-all-the-naked-again arms will you resign to let me go? And
start over, and start over, and start over?
Please?
But, yes, still, fine, yes I like the
stories we told on your back with its thick broad me. And I like
your chest with Nothing inside but you.
CIRCADIAN
The sun is always chasing the night. Damned
by the regular day. Strange then we wonder why our identities never
really feel good enough. All of us children of the sun. If you are
there somewhere further than me, blazing, I have nothing to give
but the sunset pushing west. And sometimes I think, "Where is it
that my midday sun, my bright right-here, real-time sun, is
rising?
LIFE WITH THE FRAT
BOYS
I went to prom last night. Actually it was a
fraternity's initiation banquet, and I was the girl who went with
the guy who is twenty-eight and not over his keg days. This is not
the guy who joked theoretically about wearing Depends to the bar.
This is the guy who wore Depends to the bar. Now he works in
accounts receivable in Fort Wayne. He likes it.
I spent the two days before in the usual
feminine formal dance ritual: eyebrows done, hair done, makeup
done, shoes borrowed, dress shown off, body shaved, body ridiculed,
and multiple phone calls made.
I loved that dress. It was
another beautiful moment. Very similar to other days' moments. No
need to laugh or cry, necessarily. So I was trying not to trip. I
was staring at the base of the microphone, and I was hoping so
hard, if God were in the room, that whatever they needed would
last.
But then I began to read, and it went
well.
For your voice is sweet and your face is
beautiful…love is strong as death, jealousy relentless as Sheol.
The flash of it is a flash of fire, a flame of the Lord himself.
Love no flood can quench, no torrents drown.
And I know her grandfather was there, where
they were kneeling, where he had died. And other weddings and other
moments were there. Weighing them safely. Tradition. Precedence.
And I was glad just to stare at the microphone momentarily and pray
for it all.
The two of them kneeling together, too
excited and preoccupied with routine ritual to hear anything new in
the old words, and the six-foot-six priest, and the altar girls
wearing their dirty tennis shoes and their middle school faces, and
more than enough of us under the beams willing to witness that Love
is strong as Death. And to know it's possible to invite a God who
says, periodically, "Set me like a seal on your heart."
DISSATISFACTION
a not-really poem for Dawn and the rest of
us
What do I love when I see you beside me—not
in any remembered nakedness, not stoking some old flame, but right
now—in the football stadium on the way up these concrete
stairs?
There's a long way between you and me and
the rest of us. And I'm sorry for knead-loving you. Vortex nights
get dungeon dark, maze crazed, and I can't believe how lifted and
lurched with-you I was, how clouds shook the baby.
Neglected? Who's not? Give me precious seams
of history to run my fingers down. Give me something to suck. Give
me time.
He's kissing and calling and such easy
support. I'm holding him back but pillows can't suffocate the
need-nights. And it doesn’t matter if I want to rush through you
not to plunge, touch, down under him.
Because he’s here and he's asking and he's
telling me something most comfortable. How can you let me believe
any of it?
I guess I could just tell him, “Maybe not,”
if you weren't so far away.
That's it, isn't it? So don’t bother to
swell me up temporary whole with your empty undoing and tomorrow
promises.
He’s watching. He wants me. You don’t. He
needs me. You don't. He'll move on without me and you won't.
So fine. If I kiss you on your, "Can't you
give me," lips will you go away? Will you leave me alone tonight
and tomorrow. If I lie cruel with you and don't get in the way will
you promise not to call from your, "I'm late. I'm sorry,"
world?
And if I die here sadly in your
give-me-all-the-naked-again arms will you resign to let me go? And
start over, and start over, and start over?
Please?
But, yes, still, fine, yes I like the
stories we told on your back with its thick broad me. And I like
your chest with Nothing inside but you.
CIRCADIAN
The sun is always chasing the night. Damned
by the regular day. Strange then we wonder why our identities never
really feel good enough. All of us children of the sun. If you are
there somewhere further than me, blazing, I have nothing to give
but the sunset pushing west. And sometimes I think, "Where is it
that my midday sun, my bright right-here, real-time sun, is
rising?
LIFE WITH THE FRAT
BOYS
I went to prom last night. Actually it was a
fraternity's initiation banquet, and I was the girl who went with
the guy who is twenty-eight and not over his keg days. This is not
the guy who joked theoretically about wearing Depends to the bar.
This is the guy who wore Depends to the bar. Now he works in
accounts receivable in Fort Wayne. He likes it.
I spent the two days before in the usual
feminine formal dance ritual: eyebrows done, hair done, makeup
done, shoes borrowed, dress shown off, body shaved, body ridiculed,
and multiple phone calls made.
I loved that dress. It was
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