Poem: Chevalier

New Work before I jump into the can of worms. This is a piece unaffiliated with my MA. It is interesting to me to see how my style has changed in the 6 months since I have written anything non-thesis related. Still rough, feel free to comment.


Chevalier

I have a head cold, and it is early October outside my window.
This is the first poem I have ever written on the black
Ikea couch we bought on the extra day we had the Uhual.

Someone not you and not here asked me to describe here and I said
“cat shit and wine” and felt bad, cause I knew it meant
I was on my way to being local.
The right of passage being a head cold, and public animal feces,
and using the extra Uhaul day to go to an Ikea.

All the windowsill candles we brought from San Diego
have burned out in their cups or half out in their cups
and left the lids all black-ringed.
They match the couch and the couch I can say
matches the candles in the spots I spilled hot wax.

And then there is the coffee table,
and the laminate wood shelf underneath,
where you wanted to butterfly well written magazines.
The shelf has bowed from my half Indian style way of
resting my shins upon it.

Other things have been changed by my weight upon them:
the solid oak rocker has a jiggle, and every couple
of weeks I find a random Ikea wood peg,
fallen from one of our U-hualed treasures.
Things creak, the faucet is leaking, the corners of floors dip.

No, I haven’t been sitting on the faucet. Youre funny.
I could see you thinking it.
I can see you too on the fourth flight of stairs, crimson
holding up a black couch with your broken knuckled hand
while I fought with the door.
Oh my Pioneer, my Venus, my Brave One!
Oh my Chevalier!

I am sitting by the window with a head cold.
It is New York City in October. I sneeze.
Winny-puppy clips a guitar string.
Suddenly I can hear an uprising of sirens,
two bright ambulances, God’s skirmishers,
flash on the road to the hospital.