Russell Jaffe lives in Iowa City and teaches at Kirkwood Community College. He holds an MFA in Poetry from Columbia College and his poems have appeared in or are forthcoming from Shampoo, elimae, The Portland Review, Alice Blue and others. He is the author of the chapbook G(*)D (Pudding House Press) and founder/editor of the online journal O Sweet Flowery Roses.
Go onto the fabric of this world
By Russell Jaffe
(I’ve changed, too,
both above, outside, spreading
a canopy of leaves
pale gold, pink, romantic paintings et. al
from our social studies textbooks
tapping against the French bread clouds
and tablecloth sky, and another day finishes like
ink. This then is law, pretense.
Then also insofar as the moon rings the bell
of my childhood home. I dump my bag to the floor.
This at this stage is mostly what I perceive myself to be:
the weight of that bag, the exiting of the corded phone
for a new cordless one,
a snack: truth
the truth, the whole truth,
justice, the Justice League comics splayed
like suburban embodied napkins,
undetected missions like planes cross,
crossbones, the
real truth is that this isn’t home and
this taciturn age dulls like vehicle luster,
that insects know the suburbs like muscles
grow around bones or stars,
brittle bones lecture myself to clean up
and research colleges,
the marrow therein sucked
blew up, and that’s what made this mess.
Being a kid turns to clouds like when you realize
you’re getting sweatier and hungrier more often.
Blue whips through
the day on insect wings, and the bones said
those wings were fragile but I see them
ripped apart all the time. There’s a blue war going on,
it’s a wispy cloud day,
the kind of day that reminds you of bone,
so I’ve changed, too. Now you see I’m stepping over bones.
On the TV in mom and dad’s room
tanks are rolling like the evil empire,
like tan loaves, like
giant beetles.)
