Fais Do-Do, and: Cadaver
- Fais Do-Do, and: Cadaver
Fais Do-Do
New Orleans, Louisiana
August, 2005
I gave you life when you wanted it,as I now give you milk.I gave you words when you needed thembefore the fear of them set in.Can't you for one moment then takemy hand? Baby, this here hand,ring it. I just need to know you're here.That I'm not alone in this housemade of wood, made of human plastic,made of nothing a storm won't.Don't be flip with me: I see the wayyou looking, like you want back in.You think my body will, because it didbefore, protect you? You think waterwill be nice again? Let me tell you:sometimes only lies will protect you.I'll prove it. Just hold my hand. [End Page 66]
Cadaver
I'll tell you my problem:I'm a man who would loveanother man, whetheras a son, whether as a—.
I've tried in feverto defeat this, but in the actI am defeatedlike a fly knocking its head
against the glass.Can't the fly ever knowto stop? Or a manwho abandons his son,
can't he know it amountsthe same injuryto kill the son instead?All these years
I've nursed this itch,pregnant, fragileas the earth must have feltthat time when I was buried in it.
Here's the grievers at the line,their cries stiffening,even the altar boys snifflingagainst a prescription of manhood.Here's the casket snapping shut,a hiss . . .
Who says that flesh softens at burial?I cracked. I counted the flies in my wrist. [End Page 67]
Rickey Laurentiis was born in New Orleans, Louisiana. He is the recipient of fellowships from the Cave Canem Foundation, the Civitella Ranieri Foundation in Italy, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Ruth Lilly Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation, and a Chancellor's Fellowship from Washington University in St. Louis, MO, where he is completing his MFA. His poetry has appeared in several journals, including Alaska Quarterly Review, Callaloo, Feminist Studies, Indiana Review, jubilat, Oxford American and Poetry.
