Meeting Anne Sexton, and: Dodecaphony, and: From the Pocket of His Lip, and: Rebel Opera

MEETING ANNE SEXTON

If you’re lucky the constant mask will get you this: one stalwart lover who fills out your paperwork when you can’t remember your name, a beige room with one 6-foot table, a chorus of moans and whistles from the girl next door who smiles misery for 5 hours, adults arguing over who kicked in the most walls, an alien who sucks her thumb to still her hands and avoids humans because of their nervous eyes, the manchild who writes his name in all caps on the top of a perpetually empty Styrofoam cup, a jaundiced new mother who lifts up her shirt to play drums on her stretch-marked belly— she knows only one song, AC/DC’s “For Those about to Rock”—, an elderly brother from the deep South who speaks Gullah—but not to you, about you to everyone else—”uh tell’er say dat gal geechee,” a chain-smoking, Jesus-freak therapist with questionable credentials who believes salvation is the cure for every ailment known to man —including bat-shit crazy— and the suburban pill-popping housewife who needs to know if she can touch my hair—are they braids or weave?—and if I can do her hair—I wish I had kinks too!—and if we can be best friends forever after this tornadic hell is behind the both of us. We huddle daily around the 6-foot table and commit to staging elaborate rebellions, deploying pharmico allies to flank the shadows of old wounds. I am silent, or numb. I know how I got here, and yet I have no idea how I got here. The sole respite offered by a nurse-raven, who pulls me from that wreckage for routine vital checks. Her name is Anne Sexton. I told Anne a famous poet had her name, but was no longer alive—death by asphyxiation, suicide. Anne Sexton promises she’ll read Anne Sexton one day, then asks how I’m doing. Never been better, Anne. Never better.

DODECAPHONY

“regard all present universe, the effects from past which cause its future.”   —Pierre Simon LaPlace, A Philosophical Essay on Probabilities

regard effects which the past universe present—its future from cause—all regard past universe which effects cause, it’s all present from future, the past all present from the effects cause future universe which (some) regard.

“and that future like distant past would remain present, opening our eyes.”   —Pierre Simon LaPlace, A Philosophical Essay on Probabilities

present future that like past distant would remain opening and our eyes past, distant, would remain and our eyes opening that future like present opening and our future eyes that present like distant past would remain.

FROM THE POCKET OF HIS LIP

Smoke rose under my father’s tongue. There, a strange man with an oboe sat on the ridge of his tooth, playing wide vibratos through nim- busfog. I asked why he was there, too.

Fine-tuning the orchestra of lies.

  I nodded. They play beautifully, don’t they?

Especially in your key. Hum for me.

REBEL OPERA

The opening scene begins inside the father’s mouth. Mother and Daughter resting on the pillow of his bottom lip after daily brushing and flossing his one remaining tooth.

Act 1

DAUGHTER:

How do we get the fuck out of here?

MOTHER:

That’s not discussed, Dear.

No one has ever tried.

And watch your mouth!

OBOIST:

(sounds the note)

ORCHESTRA:

(tunes to standard pitch)

DAUGHTER:

But what do we eat?

MOTHER:

We eat whatever he eats.

We eat whatever we catch.

DAUGHTER:

(clutches her growling stomach)

I’m starving.

MOTHER:

So is he.

We all are, especially those outside.

They’ll consume anything out there.

Safer here.

(catches a wren that flies in his mouth)

OBOIST:

(sets the key in C minor)

ORCHESTRA:

(plays Schubert’s “Wanderer Fantasy”)

DAUGHTER:

I can’t stay inside. I’m claustrophobic. I’m . . .

(paces and tries to distract herself with erratic movement)

MOTHER:

No exceptions...