| JAMES FINNEGAN
two
poems
Borzoi
- The swift one, that sleek and powerful
dog,
- the hunter of the steppe wolf.
- You can still see them on Fifth
Avenue
- and along Park, tethered to women,
- whose own elegant frames are
glancing
- in store windows, as they race
- a haute couture blur of mannequins.
- Sometimes, through a cast-iron
fence
- or a row of boulevard trees, these
dogs glimpse
- an expanse of grass, and the
muscles ripple
- inside their flanks, a thwarted and
ingrown
- orgasm Poised as they are, forever
posed,
- about to spring forward, if only to
run down
- the shadow of a crow passing over
the ground.
Sold Into Egypt
- At first you believed you could live
through
- this, survive in their midst without
being changed.
- The mind a pure pool of rainwater,
nothing
- could disturb. Not by fall of leaf, nor
frog plop
- against the still surface of your most
resolute state.
- But the tribute they exact seeps ever so
slowly
- out of the skin, each pore giving up a
single grain
- of salt, shining like a diamond. They
take your flesh,
- hand on the shoulder, cupping your balls,
mold
- it in a manner suitable to their needs.
They dress you
- in fine suits. Don’t slump, posture
has purpose, strike
- a pose that commands respect. You walk
down corridors
- of oaken plush, past landscapes and the
still life
- paintings of Old Masters dimly lit under
the hoods
- of brass lamps. Taught to damn by silence
- or a steady gaze: This one stays, this
one out.
- And the things you hear yourself say,
- you never thought would so easily pass
- your lips. The spit in your mouth
become acid.
- But worst of all is what you hear
yourself think.
- That nothing matters, that no one is
watching.
- The clear pool gone stagnant,
greenish—leaves lining
- the bottom, a muck of decomposing bills.
Small insidious
- things breeding in those shallows. Each
one another
- you, gasping for air, rising to claim its
share.
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