Ode to the Eighties

or

Louise, Texas preparing for NAFTA

by Marcela Sulak

Bread brings us together

and lettuce. It was almost love we felt for the double-bodied dragonfly

and the thought of zinnias, tomatoes and hot dirt, the fabulous hailstorm

light. The innocent indecent smell of mud. Crow’s poison shining

the evening grass. How many things are humming right now

how many clacking. Crickets crossing the clandestine road

carpets of them, stiff legs and odor from Mexico to Alaska.

It was the harbinger of fall. It was more than an accident

the mare scraping saddles off her back, the bike the banana seat

the Black Angus tossing little boys like salads to cockleburs

and sweet dark mounds and against all expectations

giving cream, butter and cheese.

Those little packets filled with hidden seeds

whose only purpose was not to be eaten in several languages.

They say in Niagara they don't even check. Refrigerator humming

humming, throat, feet, fingers, typewriter clacking keys, sewing

machine. Yummy yummy mange, but they say, for example,

Ne pas mange. And the night was chocolate and the purple

martin majesty pecked ants out of eye sockets.

A sprocket, a wrench, the odor of oil, Lava soap and sand

the Garwood dunes dimpling, the river that spit and swallowed.

In Ganado they gave you false social security cards and lunch.

Night watchmen say Niet eten. The salvia soundlessly sawed.

Its shadow spoke with bright red teeth. In Galveston they gave you

anglo, chicken fried steak and citizenship. Curtain of frog piss.

The screen door shut. It opened like a can. The windows fogged.

The polka-dotted air, the orchestra of gleaming slide trombones

(but I realize this didn't happen everywhere) Chickens were gnawed

their golden feet ridiculous stiffs in throats of dogs.

There is no hope for the headless. The greedy tree

pollockly painted.

The asp is apt to sting. The sky

is apt to blaze. The pop-a-lot

has flown the way of the Dodo and

Aunt Dot is finally fat.

Don’t eat that said mother, a coconut drops in Panama

a house of cards in Canada. The snapping teethy jaws

bite the line every time, the grasshoppers really bleed, the fragrant

fish the wiggly worms and silence and the plop. Winter comes

in northers, summer in hurricanes so you could say we've had a taste

of Nafta all along. The almond in Spain dropping like rain (we can only divine

these things from olives). The ant hill that reconstructs, that pyramid

of sparkling red floating in a flood. The rattle snake, shovel, the rake

the boot horn the bare Daddy back beneath baby feet the scar the cyst

the needle-nosed pliers the black-eyed peas and Susans

the cow trough full of catfish and tadpoles turning into legs.

The turning over of soil the tiller the new potatoes, blind eyes.

The eyes that saw Saturn’s rings, buried in a box beneath the oak tree

mulberry maps on hot concrete. New Year’s Eve 19theworst year

of someone’s life. non mangiare to the offspring, twig-clutching talons

triangular beaks opaque throats. Oil spills caressing eggs and scaleless skin.

The skinny girls the starry sand the night thigh. Who knows what quarks

ignited eternity. Crystal Gayle in a hurricane, flying saucer gas caps in tornados

pop-rocks and coca-cola. Don’t ask me I just work here.

Air compressor apt to explode

foreheads and hubcaps.

But we were speaking

of popcorn and green fields

crackling in stiffly starched wind

coming to a theater near you.

The sign that said if we can’t fix it

it ain’t broke, the funeral

the For Sale.