Aaron FAGAN









WORK SITE

For all the nameless,
Heartfelt expansions,
This quiet boy grows,
Watching the noisy
Village people grow.
Listening to the fancy
Barking of its elders,
He is terribly moved

By all he is lacking
And hides what he
Is lacking and more.
Unlike other, capable
Boys who can relate
To an already existing
Order of this world,
He is, forever, existing

In the same place—
And everywhere else.
"Time," he says, "I
Experience you
And become extinct."
And while he turns
Out to be nothing,
This was a time when

All of time collapsed
And remained with
His illusion, which
Stands in the center
With the carpenter
Hanging from the
Rafters, his unfinished
Sandwich on wax paper.










SIDE SHOW AND TELL

Three of us sat down at a table
With a redhead and a brunette.
Nothing was being said. Patrick,
Being Patrick, let them know
I have four toes on each foot.
After a silence the redhead said,
"And I have one leg"—as if we
Were pulling it. So I pulled off
My boots and socks and said,
"See?" to prove it. What felt
Soon, must have been later:
The brunette was upset and left.
And Patrick and what's-his-name
Went their separate ways, alone.
Dancing by the pool table with
A plaid skirt on, the redhead,
Whose name starts with an E,
Wanted me to go home with her.
She leaned into me and said
"You couldn't write anything more
Stupid than this, you know?" "Yes,"
Was everything I could say, but I was
Thinking I love her with all my heart.
Back at her studio I got undressed
And freaked out by her collection
Of antique robots from the Fifties,
But she was on her bed on the floor
Peeling off her panty hose and I
Poured us each a glass of water.
I walked one over to her as she took
Off her left leg and leaned it against
The radiator until morning.










RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT

Captured and pressed and helped
Out of being an apple on a branch,
Slowly the browning juice is put to use
One way—producing multiple effects,
Each more incomprehensible than
The next—unless, from a low airplane
At night, I could watch the thousands
Of channels that are being flashed
Through on televisions with remote
Controls. Then there would be nothing
For me to do but understand that was
A trick my mind was playing on the fact:
That clouds were obstructing the light,
Briefly, from houses on the ground.
And then making paper out of apples
For a living feels reasonable all over
Again, and for no reason whatsoever.









PLYWOOD PTERODACTYLS

The men with wombs sat down at the bar.
Staring at their long faces in the long mirror,
The world was far away and far more than
Twice of what they saw. Fear, yes, ripped
The doors and the doors of their hearts,
Yes, back and forth. Dust curled in the dirt
Of Main Street whose pavement had been
Exported ago, but there was still whiskey
And still more whiskey. Gravity is a lie.
Light is the base hallucination. They dance
For each other and do not know why
And do not care, but do think they do.
Baby St. Jude struts in to show off Scoops—
His stuffed pelican with plastic vampire teeth—
And calls it a swan. We put down our drinks
To praise his advance in weaponizing emotion.






 





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