Barter: POEMS

I Forget Who Compared the Soul

70 I ForgetWho Compared the Soul to steam misting off a bowl of soup. In the diner, she’s craning her neck, conniving, all she wants is to be recognized, to be the waif who scrubs the floors of heaven and pulls the pants down on a few granting angels. Stripped down, how undone we look. Who she slept with, where it got her, it consumes me. What I hate about Dante is how he turns Envy into a living breathing person who seduces you, who you pursue until you’re a belt he’s unbuckling, he’s rattling all your inner furniture, pressing your skull between his palms until you feel the random, impersonal gusts of the crevices that look down on the way we craft a self out of sequence, the way we become sleeves, the way we sheathe our words so the way we’re stapled to each other is invisible. Next I’ll be saying there’s a Nazi inside all of us, Evil’s just a voice inside us. Somewhere between the first jagged rip of flesh and scar tissue that makes life bearable, I see her brighten like a dial, the volume turned all the way up, asking me if the soup’s 71 ever been more than soup, dissolving into spice and slice of carrot and potato, the slip of oil that takes you to the wharf where you wanted to, and I could make her teary and regretful, except we’re all wired together, so if one should spark . . . What hacked tangles we are, so where else could we turn but to the dense interior? [blank page 72] Illinois Poetry Series Laurence Lieberman, Editor On Earth as It Is Dan Masterson (1978) Coming toTerms Josephine Miles (1979) Death Mother and Other Poems Frederick Morgan (1979) Goshawk,Antelope Dave Smith (1979) Local Men JamesWhitehead (1979) Searching the Drowned Man Sydney Lea (1980) With Akhmatova at the Black Gates Stephen Berg (1981) Dream Flights Dave Smith (1981) More Trouble with the Obvious MichaelVanWalleghen (1981) The American Book of the Dead Jim Barnes (1982) The Floating Candles Sydney Lea (1982) Northbook Frederick Morgan (1982) Collected Poems, 1930–83 Josephine Miles (1983; reissue, 1999) The River Painter Emily Grosholz (1984) History IsYour Own Heartbeat Michael S. Harper (1971) The Foreclosure Richard Emil Braun (1972) The Scrawny Sonnets and Other Narratives Robert Bagg (1973) The Creation Frame PhyllisThompson (1973) To All Appearances: Poems New and Selected Josephine Miles (1974) The Black Hawk Songs Michael Borich (1975) Nightmare Begins Responsibility Michael S. Harper (1975) The Wichita Poems MichaelVanWalleghen (1975) Images of Kin: New and Selected Poems Michael S. Harper (1977) Poems of the Two Worlds Frederick Morgan (1977) Cumberland Station Dave Smith (1977) Tracking Virginia R.Terris (1977) Riversongs Michael Anania (1978) Healing Song for the Inner Ear Michael S. Harper (1984) The Passion of the Right-Angled Man T. R. Hummer (1984) Dear John, Dear Coltrane Michael S. Harper (1985) Poems from the Sangamon John Knoepfle (1985) In It Stephen Berg (1986) The Ghosts of Who We Were PhyllisThompson (1986) Moon in a Mason Jar RobertWrigley (1986) Lower-Class Heresy T. R. Hummer (1987) Poems: New and Selected Frederick Morgan (1987) Furnace Harbor:A Rhapsody of the North Country Philip D. Church (1988) Bad Girl, with Hawk NanceVanWinckel (1988) Blue Tango MichaelVanWalleghen (1989) Eden Dennis Schmitz (1989) Waiting for Poppa at the Smithtown Diner Peter Serchuk (1990) Great Blue Brendan Galvin (1990) What My Father Believed RobertWrigley (1991) Something Grazes Our Hair S. J. Marks (1991) Walking the Blind Dog G. E. Murray (1992) The SawdustWar Jim Barnes (1992) The God of Indeterminacy Sandra McPherson (1993) Off-Season at the Edge of the World Debora Greger (1994) Counting the Black Angels Len Roberts (1994) Oblivion Stephen Berg (1995) To Us,All Flowers Are Roses Lorna Goodison (1995) Honorable Amendments Michael S. Harper (1995) Points of Departure MillerWilliams (1995) Dance Script with Electric Ballerina Alice Fulton (reissue, 1996) To the Bone: New and Selected Poems Sydney Lea (1996) Floating on Solitude Dave Smith (3-volume reissue, 1996) Bruised Paradise Kevin Stein (1996) Walt Whitman Bathing DavidWagoner (1996) Rough Cut Thomas Swiss (1997) Paris Jim Barnes (1997) The Ways We Touch MillerWilliams (1997) The Rooster Mask Henry Hart (1998) The Trouble-Making Finch Len Roberts (1998) Grazing Ira Sadoff (1998) Turn Thanks Lorna Goodison...