Trespass Read online

  THE NATIONAL POETRY SERIES

  The National Poetry Series was established in 1978 to ensure the publication of five poetry books annually through five participating publishers. Publication is funded by the Lannan Foundation; Stephen Graham; Joyce & Seward Johnson Foundation; Juliet Lea Hillman Simonds; The Poetry Foundation; and Olafur Olafsson.

  2013 COMPETITION WINNERS

  Ampersand Revisited, by Simeon Berry of Somerville, MA

  Chosen by Ariana Reines,

  to be published by Fence Books

  Bone Map, by Sara Eliza Johnson of Salt Lake City, UT

  Chosen by Martha Collins,

  to be published by Milkweed Editions

  Its Day Being Gone, by Rose McLarney of Tulsa, OK

  Chosen by Robert Wrigley,

  to be published by Penguin Books

  What Ridiculous Things We Could Ask of Each Other,

  by Jeffrey Schultz of Los Angeles, CA

  Chosen by Kevin Young,

  to be published by University of Georgia Press

  Trespass, by Thomas Dooley of New York, NY

  Chosen by Charlie Smith,

  to be published by HarperCollins Publishers

  DEDICATION

  For my mother and my father

  CONTENTS

  Dedication

  Cherry Tree

  PART ONE

  Ingalls Avenue

  Eastern Red Cedars

  Cedar Closet, 1955

  My Father as a Boy

  Late Bloomer

  Hunger

  Ordinary Time

  Maybe in an Atlas

  First Love

  I Saw You Once

  A Body Glows Bronze

  Late Bloomer

  Brunch

  Snapshot

  Screenshot

  Transference

  In That Light

  Sperm Donor

  Away

  Guest Room

  PART TWO

  Separation

  I I want to say something

  II What hurts

  III The sun on the avenue

  IV I want to solder

  V I try to forget you every day

  VI I see you as a boy

  VII You say you need

  VIII Chestnuts harden in spiky

  IX It’s been five weeks

  X Fridays are the hardest.

  XI If I forget, remind me

  XII Our first time back together

  XIII here take a universe

  XIV On the radio, bombast

  XV this morning water broke

  PART THREE

  Father

  Phone Call

  Aunt Peggy

  Picnic, 1988

  Warinanco Park

  Selling the House: Ingalls Avenue

  At Windward and Shore Roads

  Winter Burial

  Elegy

  Dying Family

  I At the church door

  II Did you see

  III My father’s niece crosses to me

  Never

  Memory

  Mary and Bobby

  St. Gertrude’s

  Freshman Theology

  Trespass

  Near

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  CHERRY TREE

  My father

  mows tight squares

  around her, she

  rains pink on him

  a rock

  cracks inside the blades

  she beats down

  flurries

  I’ve grown

  too lush

  don’t leave me

  with him

  PART ONE

  INGALLS AVENUE

  the house lit of blue television of snow

  the house where my father got tall

  house of sturdy pipes house a home

  for his sisters house of winter

  boots and calico and wooden

  spoons house of my grandfather

  his girls grandkids house of quiet

  sheer things of vinyl shingles

  the padding around the house

  the house of bins of old clothes and moon

  light open windows of gulping

  curtains the house of dusty aster

  the house of women once girls a house

  of kisses this is a house of rooms

  a house of small closets and

  smaller closets a closet for lemon

  candy tucked back a closet

  of cedar panels of tongue

  and groove of bulbs a closet for small

  things for tall things a closet for slumped

  tall things and small things this

  is a closet for tall and small things

  EASTERN RED CEDARS

  I walk by your fragrant bodies

  thinned by winter, your young ones

  are burlapped in nurseries, some are planked,

  chipped-up

  seamed for chests & trunks:

  inside a cedar closet, my father at sixteen

  one bulb setting

  your rose panels aflame, his lit face

  the white heart, his narrow body, wick,

  his niece, four years old

  his head knocks the light his hand

  steadies the wild

  string

  the light

  eclipsed, then bright

  CEDAR CLOSET, 1955

  He is sixteen and takes her

  inside, jars

  the unquiet hinge

  she waits

  forty years to name

  him, Aunt Peggy says

  you might as well be dead.

  And now

  it’s spring. My father’s hair

  thins, dull moth-gray, the last

  clouds sink like sacks, the trees

  are wet, sweat

  on a body, damp wool.

  MY FATHER AS A BOY

  his arm is the smallest to snake

  the toilet’s trapway, at night

  a body can vanish

  in the dark house, under covers I see

  his smallness, a sharp elbow, remember

  my smallness as he gathered my body in bed

  he wakes to his sister

  and father at the foot of the bed

  his father kissing her neck

  hands running up her night blouse

  fingertips treading to a clasp

  sliding a hook from its eye

  LATE BLOOMER

  at sixteen

  my father stood

  at the full-length

  mirror naked and

  touched

  his chest

  his hairless

  legs touched

  between them

  he told me once

  he thought his body

  was small

  and quiet

  like a girl’s

  HUNGER

  We sat scissor-legged on the carpet

  popped open the suitcase, a storm of tulle

  she pulled Barbie

  from the waves

  caftan made from a pocket square

  she showed me to drag

  blond hair through

  dryer sheets to tame the wisps

  she stopped my hand

  stuck on the brush stuck in knots

  here the spray for tangles

  I crossed the hallway

  to her brother’s room

  he took off

  my corduroy shorts, took off

  his wildlife tee

  against a polar sky

  the airbrushed wolves

  ORDINARY TIME

  In the sacristy my father<
br />
  rinsed cruets smothered wicks

  the monsignor pulled off

  a chasuble of emerald silk

  moved his hands

  down my father

  the choir shook

  handbells from the loft

  what my father did

  when he moved

  to her body when he lifted

  her green dress

  MAYBE IN AN ATLAS

  Maybe another New Jersey

  somewhere. Linden wood

  as cash cow. And a way out. If my father grew

  taller that year, sudden. Reached

  the high altar wicks, a Moses

  in Egypt. Bigger than the priests. What if deus

  ex machina. Or a catcher.

  No rye. Rye watered

  down. Rocks to mean rocks. Not

  glacial. Not a cold hand

  anywhere. A siren sounds

  on skin. Maybe a pie

  in the window. Adults made big gestures

  with giant hands. He wasn’t soft.

  Boney, but not folded

  like egg whites, hankies.

  In his yearbook: “Aspiration: farmer.”

  Tall as corn, as noon sun. Only if he grew

  taller, sudden, he wouldn’t be

  lightweight linden, maybe a hundred

  proof. She was proof. Girls

  were softer. Maybe his hand

  looked giant. And she lay down

  softly. Like he was made to, maybe.

  FIRST LOVE

  At the bar last night

  I couldn’t believe it was you

  standing by the men in leather collars

  your layman’s jeans and work boots

  the same tough suede I remember

  below your vestment’s hem

  at altar boy camp, tea lights

  in our cabin, I always hoped

  you would choose me

  to start the flames.

  Now you travel the decade

  of my spine, your mouth sudden

  on each bone, I turn you over

  my lips drag heat

  from the thin chaplet of hair

  shrining your navel, I hold you

  like a chaperone at a theme park

  when you held me as we looped

  through air and at Mass

  when you placed in my hand

  a body I could eat.

  I SAW YOU ONCE

  on a Brooklyn corner, fronds

  of palm, your sachet

  of lemon halves, you ask

  if I’m Jewish, how we

  look like brothers—

  jet hair, same skin

  a tincture of chickpeas,

  our noses not Roman

  nor button, I want to appeal:

  let me celebrate with you. Listen, my voice

  can match the glottal timbre

  of your prayers, let me unfurl the black

  curls by your ears like scrolls, read

  your thoughts, your oils fragrant

  on my fingertips.

  A BODY GLOWS BRONZE

  the Belgian soldier

  his uniform slung

  over a chair back

  creases preserved

  a man with war

  in him yet

  retreats under

  a studio lamp

  his dense sinew

  muscled how

  a body glows

  bronze under your rub

  the artist’s knife

  his clay-tipped fingers

  the soldier’s blazer

  in the corner

  late sun sets

  fire to brass buttons

  LATE BLOOMER

  Spindle-heart at fourteen,

  and eighty-five pounds. But you had

  a dusting of hair above your lip, dark stains

  under your arms after relays.

  White-primed, gessoed canvas, I felt untouched,

  untouchable, gilt icon in plexi, I wanted

  your size, a potency,

  yeast that balloons.

  Still I was

  unleavened and wafer-thin.

  BRUNCH

  Cold tea bag pressed

  in a napkin, my father

  picks at toast.

  Bobby, his sister says

  there are some accusations

  against you,

  your niece, well,

  she goes

  to a therapist,

  he tells her to

  shit on

  your photo.

  My mother runs

  to the kitchen and vomits

  in the sink.

  He leans

  over cold

  eggs, what’s left on the plate

  my mother comes back

  a damp cloth

  to her mouth

  she moves

  clutching

  the tall chair backs

  breathes in to slide

  behind his chair, it’s quiet

  on Mildred Avenue, brakes

  scream down Ingalls

  my mother clears her plate

  reaches for his.

  SNAPSHOT

  Her therapist said find one put it

  on the bathroom floor so she searched albums

  for his face the picnic photos

  at the grill his head smoke-capped limp hands

  fanning charcoal then her wedding proofs

  all the uncles in suits and one close-up

  my father bow-tied tipped black

  seesaw at his throat open smile

  his tongue a small peak he’s calling to someone

  outside the frame his right hand bent

  in mid gesture his fingernails a bit long

  and in focus the tips the whitest

  SCREENSHOT

  I watch the clip

  of you moved

  to pleasure, freeze

  on white pixels

  my hand rolls down

  a slow storm

  I move with your

  thunder, we are twinned

  rhythms, the joy

  you shake from me

  TRANSFERENCE

  I was working

  in the theater’s toolroom

  when my father called

  Mom told me

  about your new

  friend and I thought

  you can’t even

  say it and I squeezed

  a pair of pliers in my hand

  as the paint sink kicked back gunk

  and hung up the phone

  hung up the pliers

  aligning their jaws.

  In the wings it was dark

  I instructed the actor

  playing a waiter

  how to wring

  the grinder, crack

  whole corns

  to coarse pepper.

  IN THAT LIGHT

  he was all angles

  L of jaw, shoulders a ledge

  of granite, I thought

  he seemed biblical

  the perfection of the tribes

  settling into his thunder

  thick honeyed wrists

  and I was yielding,

  of linen.

  Darwin would study his dense

  bicuspids, long feet hitting

  the earth, his cock

  slapping thighs, he needs

  me to praise him

  he needs men

  to tell him, or show him

  or show on him when

  that weekend in July

  on the sandy cape that hooks a bay

  the salt a skin on him, moonlight

  violent with silver on him

  the other man’s

  bright tongue

  how strangers can validate

  how that man knelt to him

  and he comes home to me

  SPERM DONOR

  And then

  a hatch

  threw open

  a fl
ush of blood, pink-

  cheeked,

  you broadcast:

  They want my sperm!

  You imagine your stuff

  flying through tangle

  bursting to a field

  a privet of XYs—

  flourish little ones!

  They will spin

  and set in that lesbian womb, form

  bones, push white elbow and

  purple cord into a dark

  pixilated frame,

  fine

  set in them your link

  that quiet boat

  you send into me

  that never finds dock

  AWAY

  I pile books on the bed

  in your place, calculate

  the weight of you, I crowd

  the pillows like

  bodies, all night I’m wasteful

  with lamplight

  GUEST ROOM

  A bed too short,

  our feet slide out

  and cup the brass

  footboard, cool

  in our concaves, what

  my father would do

  to find us: curled

  fiddleheads, one

  cochlea intricate

  as fist, oil slicked

  metallic on pond

  our bodies’

  edges imbricate, in

  the morning we

  divide and in a year

  we separate.

  PART TWO

  SEPARATION

  I

  I want to say something

  about sabotage. How you

  designed it.

  I am scooping dry food

  to a deaf cat, no longer

  in our kitchen, the old marble

  mantle I left

  vacant,