I approached it with scepticism and
hated that it moved me,
as in I wept between the willows
and then got up on the table and
let my bones percuss against one another
in a fit of reckless abandon.
I didn’t understand The Great American Novel
when I was younger.
I had beat against the current, but
not enough. I had made love on boats,
but not considered myself to be one.
last year I read it over your shoulder
and finally began to understand.
I intended on burying myself there.
in the book. in the bone marrow of your shoulder,
the radiant basin of your clavicle,
awash with late-leaving night dew,
in which a dead millionaire could comfortably float.
you told me the book
made you want to party
and I found you a sleazy nightclub.
you told me you wanted oysters
and I walked from Paris to Marseille
to pluck those waterlogged flowers from the bay.
you told me you wanted to dream big
and I sang you back to sleep.
you wanted
and I got you what you wanted.
the book is written in the only language
I was taught how to speak.
forget speaking.
I’d rather move.
paris is a grand-dame dancing.
paris is a smoker’s cough disguised
as a laugh.
paris is a moveable feast
when you can afford to eat,
and The Great Gatsby is a veritable
transatlantic diary.
every party girl is mourning Zelda Fitzgerald.
they do the Charleston with their faces shrouded
and their bodies bared,
beautiful fools – or pretending to be.
Zelda, they sing, stand up stand up
and please seize your life, oh Zelda!
but their request is met with silence.
the parties were bursting at the seams,
grand enough for all manner of intimacies,
but the funeral was a small affair,
with few in attendance.
for Scott even, the six pallbearers required payment.
how must it feel
to be the author of your own ending?
though of course everyone, for a moment,
writes with the deft touch of god.
over your shoulder, the words spelt out
the inexhaustible variety of life,
coming right at us like an automobile
at a breathing body –
inescapable, lush,
endlessly painful.
let’s try not to smash up each other’s lives,
until we inevitably do. and then,
let’s pretend that we didn’t.
let’s attend each other’s funerals,
after this drive towards death.
let’s put down the book and
dance in the street,
reassured in the knowledge
that it was everything you wanted it to be,
and everything I hoped it wouldn’t be.
the General Electric moon bares down on our waltz,
crackling in and out of focus
against the champagne bubble night sky.
I rate it 4 out of 5 stars.
