Heard Said
I’m four
at the hospital I was born in.
From behind the nurse’s
white gown and mask:
I want you to count backward from
ten for me now
out loud.
*
My stepmother
with a stack of my father’s papers.
What do I
do with it,
Jimmie?
*
It was a beautiful suit of clothes,
very expensive.
I saw it hanging from the mirror
on the far side of his car.
He was so pleased
when he found my note on the windshield.
He took the suit upstairs
and came back down
to let me see it on him.
*
When they want rain,
they put their mouths to the water and blow.
They take some in their hands
and as they throw it upward cry
Look here!
Do like this!
*
A note to her
television set
was left by a woman
who then took her own life.
*
We were replaced on the line by the Unimates.
They’re good at the work. They’re never late. The one
problem with them is that they
don’t buy cars.
*
It defies me.
I put it right here where I
always do,
and it’s not there.
I loathe a beastly key.
*
If you work hard to keep a secret,
you’re resentful when it’s not found out.
*
Through our closed
eyelids as the bomb exploded,
we could see every bone in our hands.
*
It has a Slavic name he couldn’t pronounce. I said
It’s flanged and chrome,
with seven spiders on each side.
That’s it, he said. Where can he but it,
he needs it today. I told him
I don’t know, but I’ve got one in my garage.
*
She can’t leave you alone.
Sits you down,
feeds you what you don’t need to eat.
It’s no use telling Bertie Mae no.
And of course we wouldn’t take nothing for her.
*
I’ve killed other people.
You’ll find that this will go better
if you and I don’t talk.
*
Foreplay starts at breakfast.
*
On the answering machine:
If you could
call me tonight
no matter how late,
it would be a good idea.
Copyright Credit: James McMichael, "Heard Said" from If You Can Tell. Copyright © 2016 by James McMichael. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux. http://us.macmillian.com/fsg
Source: If You Can Tell (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2016)