The Amon Liner Poetry Award PYGMALION

Your hands dig me
Out of my tomb of ivory,
Carve the mark of my eyes,
Open so the whites are white and
Guileless, onlooking, sand down
The apple of my hips, chisel
The dips of my back, every stroke by
Calloused hands, those yellowed
And aching hands, those coarse and
Clawing, cloying hands that wrench
Me into unmovingness. I’m made
More perfect by the cold, skin
Unknown to blemish but by the
Weathering of your running hands,
The wearing of your knobby hands
Only a man’s gaze to awaken me
To praise the pure expanse of
My impassive beauty, to linger
On the sheen of my jaw and my
Roman-column neck, earthly-globen
Breasts, the way I gleam under summer
Sun or by cavernous torchlight.
How your eyes frighten me, lingering
And you finger every mountain,
Every cavity, wish me awake, fervently
Pray I would take to your breath
Step down from the dais and down
To your feet, plead Aphrodite make
Me soften and melt at your body
But if heat came to me, it would come
First to my legs, like fire, and burn
All at once, and I would roil and churn,
And I would run, I would run, I would run.

BRAYER

From four fields down this morning, the Walkers’ mule
is braying as if he’s had enough, as if he’ll kick off
the human arms bringing his burden, as if he’ll have
no more of those days he works straight through.

Here is a flower. And here is an imperial moth.
Here is a kitten playing with a tennis ball. Here
is the shooter taken without incident. And here
is a child. Here is a congressman calling for prayer.

There goes the Walkers’ mule again, unbowing his head,
stretching his muscled neck, and letting out a bray
like a peal of trumpet and kettledrum as if he could make,
by breath or will, yesterday’s burden dissolve today.

ORION

This evening’s worn on. It’s late
by the time Orion peeks from the alley
(after the bar, the band, the brawl,
the last call). He rises, he peers around,
he steps out further, he cinches his belt.
He stands proud. He swears,
                                   every so often moved
by a well-worn notch or two, this
is the one belt he’s always worn—
forget his full belly bulging above—
since the days, seems just eons ago,
when he was young, a sparkle in your eye.

INVENTORY

        —garage

The wooden workbench,
scattered with half-finished
projects. The saw and drill,
the red tool chest,
its internal mechanism
allowing only one drawer
to open at a time. The
pneumatic jack, its long,
white handle. The cabinets,
bought from an online posting,
hung and painted gun-gray.
The carburetor, sitting on a table,
the spring that makes it work.
The bin with empty cans,
the overflowing ashtray,
measures of the time
he’s logged here.
The gas-powered heater,
its flame, the soft blue glow.
The overturned metal-bottom
boat. The mouse nest,
the baby mice, their wriggled
mass. The smoke-stained
posters, the boxes and boxes.
The vice clamps, the free weights,
the picture of the two of us,
tacked to the wall. His feet,
sticking out from beneath the car.
The draining oil. The mind
that knows the problem,
how to fix it. The delivery,
picking the right tool
from the box,
carrying it across the cold
cement floor. Its destination.
My father’s anticipating hand.

 

ORACLE

You will stand at the edge of the river, pouring out
every memory of your father—his virtues and shortcomings.

A lion will be watching from the other bank, shaking ice
from its mane. Like a child, you will sense the mystery of your own

body, living and somehow new. Having done this, you will see
the cup in your hand, hear a voice calling someone’s name.

 

ALL THE TELEPHONES

At the beginning of an affair
there is always one person saying
Red rover, red rover,

let me come over while the other
person sways to the side and
kicks a rock. I’m the pirate.

If I were greedy, I’d take all
your percocet. I have been here
before minus the stripes

and your country’s four-digit code.
All calls end in similar ways.
Time to sleep, time to eat

time to put down your voice now.

 

The Robert Watson Literary Prize Poem SOME SUNLIGHT

Loneliness prances by like an invisible bull
where I loll at the overgrown rodeo.
You would’ve loved it.
I dribbled orange juice all over the bleachers.
I peed in the weeds.
I sat there for hours and hours with a giant book
I didn’t read.
A gate rattled against itself in the distance.
Existence, existence.
“Incalculable Loss,” says the Times.
The warmth of some sunlight on my back.
The pizzicato footsteps of a quail in the grass.

 

Pleasure Hotel

Smoke rose from the pleasure hotel. Smoke rose in the face of the pleasure hotel—in the moonless face of
a rose, smoke rose like pleasure burning. In the burning hotel pleasure rose like smoke, though moonless
we pleasured, we rose, we burning, the hotel moonless though we rose—yet less than burning—we rose
burning full of pleasure in the moonless hotel. We pleasured, moonless, we burning-faced moonless, we
face-to-face in the moonless pleasure hotel of smoke, yes, we rose and rose in the face of burning, and like
any burning, like any pleasure, any face in the hotel, in the moonless night—we rose.

The Amon Liner Poetry Award AN IMPERFECT FIGURE

                                is making biscuits in the morning just
for myself worth it
                                 kneading in the butter
filling the kitchen           with godly golden
                                 crumble smell
breaking open like a confession
                                 steam gasping into the air
apron covered in floury
                                 handprints           not caring
that it’s hot in the kitchen I will
                                 say of course           and more

                                 and then opening           the jam
last summer’s Michigan blueberry
                                 the near-black nectar smothering
licking my fingers
                                 I can live with the softness
padding my ribs for this           the crumbs
                                 all over the sticky counter
like waking up in the bed of the one I love
                                      a trail      of my clothes set loose
across the floor
                                 unconcerned if it’s messy
the answer is yes           and please

STANDARD COURSE OF STUDY

There is no history of accord,

only one of cruelty—

if the goat calms the stallion,

then debtors will clip the wires

or thrash the thick cypress fence

to steal the goat—

if the stallion loses by a leg,

the debtors will be jailed—

if the prisoners riot,

the guards will quell violence

with riot gas and side-handle batons—

 

Still, imagine how droll

the high school textbooks rewritten

to chronicle an affable people—

They shook hands and massaged each other’s shoulders,

they dressed in corduroy pantaloons

to serenade each other from balconies—

Imagine the cruelties we might have to imagine

to keep ourselves engaged—

snakebites, beds of nails,

mild electric shocks—