rad poetry #2: for nikolai stephanovich

RAD POETRY THANKS STEPHAN CLARK



FOR YOU TO FINISH WHILE YOU'RE SWIMMING

for Nikolai Stephanovich

Your heart is five to eight pounds and fits inside of life,
which will mostly be an evil pancake and a game of
tattoos you don't want, but sometimes good things
too: everybody on a bus laughing together at night,
towels just warm, dumping rock salt into homemade
ice cream, the scroll button on your mouse,
drinking coffee in the shower, then drinking coffee
together with your favorite naked person at the time,
who will be a girl or a guy or a gluttony of sympathetic
polymers. Any one of these is fine. Ask your dad,
he's from California. Nik, be careful who you take a
nickname from. It's like they'll always have a hand
under your shirt. Names are secret fingers. Watch this:
yellowjacket, artichoke, huckleberry, marzipan.
Show up a minute late with a really awesome
story of what happened on the way. Listen in your
head before you say things out loud, try to know
reactions before people drop them but don't try
too hard, which is the same advice as "Don't use
speakerphone, ever." When you take someone's
picture, show them. When you kiss someone's
neck, tell them a secret. If you do it right,
God will show up when you're mid-blink,
like a fire that is also a window, like a trial by
snow, and you will want to close your eyes if
whispered to by one, and take your eyes and
heave them into the ocean for someone
else, which will feel both melodramatic and
perfect. Everything you feel will also be a way
to hold on. Social groups will always have that
one friend. There will be things you save to tell
someone that you'll never get to tell at all.
Fear is what happens when you sing too quietly.
One night you will go unexpectedly swimming,
then you won't need this poem anymore.
That's when to title me and dunk your mouth
and spit straight up so the water lands on your
face. Tell who you're with "Look, a face!" and then
give your face to that person as hard as you can.