WORLD VOICES

BORDER REPORTS
  BY RODNEY WITTWER


Contents


Home

Introduction
About the Author
Holiday
Silly Love Songs
There Must Be Music or
    Fear

An Empty House Is the
   Loudest Music

Isn't, Isn't Here
Two Coasts, The Sea
    Beside

Border Reports
We Are Not Like Other
   People & Do Not
   Need Them

What You Think of Me
Sibling Rivalry
Candidate
Parade
The Answer Man at the
   Circus

Every Week He Wants To
   Be Better

New Year's Eve
Stay
Gone & Gone

Acknowledgments

World Voices Home

The Literary Explorer
Writers on the Job
Books Forgotten
Thomas E. Kennedy
Walter Cummins
Web Del Sol



Silly Love Songs

Kiss

“Well of course” she says “of course
your missives gusted like tumble weeds
across the ghost town of my life,
you fucking slob, you big fat nerve.”
Then she sweetly cuts a melon down
the middle & takes the dripping red
chunks out to the garden, the one
full of food, flowers & guests.


Riding Shotgun Down the Avalanche

“Faster” she kept saying, “much farther
& faster.” The sunflower soared & cast
no shadow. The anomaly of the anemone
that never came up. “More” she would
chant, like a warrior, like a pony
given the green light to a cloven
foot, tail forked & spinning
the wigged air. “Harder” she
spat, than lava much later,
the impenetrable core of anything
cooled beyond cold. “Tastier” she kept
saying, “much further & tastier.”


Yes

“Yes” he says “yes” &
places a pearl on his tongue
& slowly closes his lips
while a shadow rubs
the one good eye he's allowed
& as the light
swinging above the table stops
point blank above him
he says “fake, fake”
& blows it
out.


The Ties That Blind

I loved him like a brother
& let him place the gun
in my mouth
a sign of trust
the family doctor's
tongue depressor
a mother's
all day sucker
a propeller
hovering
just that tiny flick
above the heart.