The Fiddleback

poems by Christina Olson

 

Fur Pillows are Actually Hard to Sleep On

            a found poem consisting of Kayne West’s best tweets of 2010

 

It’s a new day. I’m sorry,
Taylor. I’m ready to get out
of my own way. The ego
is overdone. It’s like hoodies.

Dating models, I had to learn
to like small dogs and cigarettes.
I didn’t want to ruin
the magic. I ordered the salmon
medium instead of medium well.

I specifically ordered persian rugs
with cherub imagery!!! What do I have
to do to get a simple persian rug
with cherub imagery. I hate
when I’m on a flight & I wake up
with a water bottle next to me. Like
oh great now I gotta be responsible
for this water bottle. My favorite unit
of measurement is a shitload.

Two valuable business rules:
No drunk blogging and never do coke
with an intern. I’ve hurt,
I’ve bled, I’ve learned.
I’m cool with trial and error.
I am passionate, I am human,
I am real. I wish I could meet
every hater. Let’s raise
our children better
than us. I only want to do good.
 

 

Son of a Voyeur

At night, the son waits up
for his father to come in,
shoes wet from the sprinklers

in the neighbors’ lawn, three
houses down—Kacy Williams,
who likes nighttime showers,

who walks from bathroom
to closet in the black mirror
of unblinded windows,

whose body two years ago
got interesting, who thinks
no one peeps in the suburbs.

That Kacy,says the voyeur,
now she’s gotten interesting,
huh, & his son looks only

at the floor, the commas
of grass clippings dangling
from his father’s pants cuffs.

He is young, like Kacy,
too young to do anything.
His father leaves each

weeknight at nine, prime
time on the East Coast.
The voyeur’s wife, gone

these four years. The son,
who knows everything
his father’s up to.

That summer, I asked
my mother what voyeur
meant & she said, Someone

who likes to watch & then met
my eyes, both hands still
on the wheel: Wait. Why?

We lived in Carolina then
& every day I came home
from daycare with questions:

How come we call them roaches
but Miss Tommy calls them
palmetto bugs? What’s a fag?

Who’s Jesus? Sometimes
my pockets were stuffed
with notes we were to discuss

& sign & return: Christina
doesn’t seem to know any
of the stories of the Bible.

My father rolled his eyes
& threw them in the trash.
We were neither there

nor here. We were waiting
for a secular daycare to open,
for a better job up north,

for the days to go cool again.
Down the street lived a son
& his father, & further

down, a girl named Kacy.
One night the son waited
& then hit his father

many times with a hammer
as he screamed You are disgusting.
When the cops put him

in the back of the car,
the lights fell red on his face.
The father didn’t get up. The son

took the money kind people
sent & mailed it to the Williams
with a note: Blinds.

That summer, Culture Club’s
hot hot hit was “I’ll Tumble
4 Ya,” but I thought the lyrics

were Son of a voyeur,
I’m the son of a voyeur. It played
on the radio as we drove

around Aiken, our car
windows rolled down, the sun
warm & everyone watching.

 

 

——–
Christina Olson