Ken Hunt

On The Announcement Of My Sister's Engagement.

it was not a surprise
really. I had been
referring to him as my future
brother in law for quite some time;
there have been songs of anticipation
and there are poems of anticipation
bits of sediment paling against the fact

they were all there to see his mother
off to see her mother for the first time
in twenty-six years. Off the plane
in Korea - and then off to Vietnam -
there were no words
then a scene that needed no interpreter
a war that made him possible ends
with the extension of full diplomatic
recognition and the egress of family
finally made whole

come July those on my side who recall
the Old World will witness the joining
into an unknown world
this family is stretching all over the world

but never mind that 'cos he's a full-tanker
huntin'-and-fishin' American boy
with a dog and a truck a boy from
Hoquiam and Hoquiam shares a city
limit with Aberdeen and Aberdeen
is a marryin' kind of town

not a phone call to mother goes
by without my hearin' the hitchin'
of kids from high school
but we're not kids anymore
and they can't track me down for reunion

it can keep a girl busy
it can keep a family grounded.

and the cops are clustered like wasps
around the street kids and drunk
drivers spin 270-degree turns at the edge
of the intersection and the all
night deli p.a. barks out somebody
else's number and this is my world
I can think without inflation
this is now all my world

full diplomatic ties have
been established with Vietnam
and even though she and I only
have to say the word "bear" to make
us fall down with laughter
it is not us now waiting for two
hours for mother to come
home and find the broken
rocking chair to come home
to the storm

it is now us sitting
I am visiting the hometown
sports bar with about sixteen
of her friends. over the din
she asks if I'd like a beer. Yes,
let us pull the genetic trigger again.
no, not now. Surely not here.

some people somehow just know
how to get it right she is Gibraltar
in track shoes through the rehabs and chemo
she is the one to drive to the barber and choose
the wig and the one to drive to bus
stations and dormitories she's saving lives
on the lake every day as I hole
up in a succession of beige rooms
with one diuretic to sleep
and one diuretic to awake saying things like
well these things do happen
and let's wait and see - the best
approximation of generic prescriptions
for situations like these

and sometimes you wonder how
people like them make it
work especially when the people
downstairs are in a tornado
of slammed doors and top shelf
obscenities especially when family
planning clinics explode especially when
the legislature is playing Kristallnacht
with your life

this poet I know worries her sister
unaltered by man or instrument
will wake up some day and discover
she never made choices of her own
but even in the sentient world volition

some people know how to flower the cycle
some people are stock of the family stew.

Untitled (Because I Just Can’t Call It “Bunnies”)

the tattoo artist in madison
asks if i have anything published
when she finds out why
i'm up this way
i pull out the stack of xeroxes
and she knocks ten dollars off her price
this was a good choice
i almost wound up here
and maybe i will again

"is that a real bunny" i ask
pointing to the stockstill figure
on a franklin place lawn
"we have bunnies like other places have rats"
he says
he talks in a loud voice about white trash
as we pass
an infamous house
wonder bread and dog crap on the lawn
this is my first time here
beyond the pull of atavism
i want to see unchanging things
even if they are things i never knew

"i can't wait to get out of this fucken town"
he says
he has been saying
since well before i met him
he's saving money from a good job now
he's got a big pewter ring
and a ticket to boston
a ticket to fly
"i can't do anything until i get out of here"
he says
and i know this for a fact to be true
it is not a proud facet of my education
i still feel a twinge for him
a slight roiling of the abdomen
and i leave it at that

his friend writes poems
that send me running from neighborhood
bars with tears in my eyes
all the falling angels have
the magnetic beauty of archetype
we encounter him
as the six-day window expires
after which it will be safe to fly out of los angeles
i mention that i want to
write a song called
"go unabomber go"
specifically a real sonic
youth style instrumental type thing
he jerks backward with laughter
and sits up with a different subject

i am happy for neighborhood bars
i am happy for coffeeshops inside pharmacies
i am happy for diminutive lagomorphs
a silhouette of the state
is stenciled on my arm
and scraped
i write in our exchange
that i will take the state
and her art home
and through the rest of my life
she looks perplexed if pleased
she says she writes poems
but has to leave the room
when someone else reads them
she majored in art
i bet she's good
i may yet wind up here

somewhere in washington d.c.
one of his republicans
is loving off
the party line
somewhere in boston
is a man with his name on him
somewhere in texas
is the transverse of my psi
somewhere up the street
a coffeeshop waitress
is calling one of her customers "hon"
it's a holiday weekend
turn up to a firework sky
it's a big world for all of us
but not all the time
it's all about being in the right place
the right time
is a distant second

he's struggling with something new
for next week's open mike
"no one in this town appreciates my stuff"
he says
he is probably right
"i hope i meet another poet"
he says
i understand this to mean in boston
you will, my friend
i want to say
i have rooted in your shoes before
and grew from them sublimely
i am glad he is flying into boston
and not out of los angeles
no one should have to fly out of los angeles
i am glad he is moving
diagonally opposed to los angeles
i am glad to be at his side
watching
and leaving it at that

i can hear the twangs
from all over america
"if you like it so much
why didn't you move there"
it is precisely that fact
that swells my affinity
this should be clear
i have never acted on accident in my life

it's not long for me anyway
tomorrow it's back off to chicago
i am not looking forward to chicago
where waitresses never call you "hon"
and you'll never see bunnies

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