Tony Hoagland
Autumn and the trees decide again they don't
need leaves. Mothers add more blankets to the bed.
Yellow lights in windows of the junior high
mean that nightschool is back in session,
tired grownups sitting in the plastic desks
learning to bisect the hypotenuse,
how to say spreadsheet in Japanese.
This week on the televised hearings,
we get to watch our congressmen
nervously pronounce the word homosexual
in public; the committee trying to determine
whether queers are good enough
to pull the triggers
on machines designed to foreclose lives
contrary to the national well-being,
--but the Congressman can't
pull the trigger on his own tongue
to fire out the word without
tripping over it, fumbling, stumbling
into the ditch between home and sexual.
--You might say his defense industry is troubled,
as if he had a subterranean suspicion
that to say it might mean, just a little, to become it,
which might be right--since language uses us
the way that birds use sky, the way that seeds and viruses
knit themselves into a mammal's fur
and hitchhike towards the future.
When you say a word,
you enter its vocabulary,
its got your home address, your phone number, and weight;
it won't forget;
they way the parents who finally bring themselves to say lesbian
enter, through that checkpoint,
the country where their daughter lives.
Tonight, all over Washington, senators in mirrors
will practice
until they are as fluent saying homosexual
as they already are at saying Mr. President and first strike option.
Sometimes we think the truth is the worst thing that could happen
but the truth is not the worst thing that could happen.
Now it is autumn and in stores
the turquoise wading pools,
spangled with starfish and shells,
are stacked against the wall, on sale,
implying what was costly yesterday
is cheap today, and may be free tomorrow:
all our yearnings and our fears--
so many seahorses
galloping through bubbles.
Tables of Content
Seventeen (Fall 2003)
Sixteen (Spring 2003)
Fifteen (Fall 2002) Fourteen (Spring 2002)
Thirteen
(Fall 2001) Twelve (Spring 2001)
Eleven (Fall 2000)
Ten (Spring 2000)
Nine (Fall 1999) Eight (Spring 1999)
Seven, (Fall 1998) Six, (Spring 1998)
Five (Fall 1997) Four (Winter/Spring 1997)
Three (Summer/Fall 1996) Two (Winter 1996)