Why Can't I Leave You by Ai

Why Can't I Leave You?, Ai

You stand behind the old black mare,
dressed as always in that red shirt,
stained from sweat, the crying of the armpits,
that will not stop for anything,
stroking her rump, while the barley goes unplanted.
I pick up my suitcase and set it down,
as I try to leave you again.
I smooth the hair back from your forehead.
I think with your laziness and the drought too,
you’ll be needing my help more than ever.
You take my hands, I nod
and go to the house to unpack,
having found another reason to stay.

I undress, then put on my white lace slip
for you to take off, because you like that
and when you come in, you pull down the straps
and I unbutton your shirt.
I know we can’t give each other any more
or any less than what we have.
There is a safety in that, so much
that I can never get past the packing,
the begging you to please, if I can’t make you happy,
come close between my thighs
and let me laugh for you from my second mouth.

Twenty-year Marriage by Ai

Twenty-year Marriage

by Ai

You keep me waiting in a truck

with its one good wheel stuck in the ditch,

while you piss against the south side of a tree.

Hurry. I’ve got nothing on under my skirt tonight.

That still excites you, but this pickup has no windows

and the seat, one fake leather thigh,

pressed close to mine is cold.

I’m the same size, shape, make as twenty years ago,

but get inside me, start the engine;

you’ll have the strength, the will to move.

I’ll pull, you push, we’ll tear each other in half.

Come on, baby, lay me down on my back.

Pretend you don’t owe me a thing

and maybe we’ll roll out of here,

leaving the past stacked up behind us;

old newspapers nobody’s ever got to read again.

Conversation by Ai

Conversation

We smile at each other
and I lean back against the wicker couch.
How does it feel to be dead? I say.
You touch my knees with your blue fingers.
And when you open your mouth,
a ball of yellow light falls to the floor
and burns a hole through it.
Don't tell me, I say. I don't want to hear.
Did you ever, you start,
wear a certain kind of dress
and just by accident,
so inconsequential you barely notice it,
your fingers graze that dress
and you hear the sound of a knife cutting paper,
you see it too
and you realize how that image
is simply the extension of another image,
that your own life
is a chain of words
that one day will snap.
Words, you say, young girls in a circle, holding hands,
and beginning to rise heavenward
in their confirmation dresses,
like white helium balloons,
the wreathes of flowers on their heads spinning,
and above all that,
that's where I'm floating,
and that's what it's like
only ten times clearer,
ten times more horrible.
Could anyone alive survive it?




Ai