Live and Die

Live and Die

"But suicides have a special language.
Like carpenters they want to know which tools.
They never ask why build." –A.S.

You—
Sexy Sadie—
the seducer seduced
by the fumes of your Cougar.
With a cigarette, vodka—
your mother's fur—
you had to be a glamour girl
even while the cold crept up your limbs.

And now your frozen eyes
haunt me from your book cover—
your image awash
in watery blue.
Cradling your skinny knees—
looking up—breakable—
like you've been caught crying,
you provide such a dangerous model.

so I crack the book open—

My fingers are pricked
by your poems—
blood mixes with ink.
The words refuse
to stay on the page.
They catch on my sleeve.
They stain me.
They dare me.
They follow me to bed
and call me out of sleep—
and I swear I see the corners
of your cardboard mouth
creep up into a smirk.

Is this what you wanted?
Dead but never gone—
to show your fellow suicides
the way out of generations
and even the grave?
To be reincarnated
over and over again
in the minds of people
who see their insanity
inside the jackets of your books?

I hear the pattern of your breath
in the rhythms of your lines—
I can see you—
terrified and fighting—
trapped inside the madness
you trapped inside words
and now those words live for you
to breathe that madness
into ears searching
for just such a sound—
a clang of frightful recognition
that makes our stories merge.


--jenna r. mckean january, 2000