Old School

my grandmother graduated

from the depression-surviving,

atomic-bomb-wielding,

cover-your-upturned

nuclear-fallout-ass-with-time

saving-kitchen-appliances old school.

that old school dwelled

under the narcotic stink

of fresh cut suburbias

blooming in desert places

where the only thing

supposed to rise

was the sun

up, over the horizon

every morning

to bake the soil dry,

turn daylight mean.

my grandmother graduated

from that old school

where the curriculum

still taught courses like,

the health benefits

of smoking cigarettes

everyday.

indian savages

yearn for the one true god,

too.

niggers are

(and will always be)

niggers, amen.

and naturally thought

my australian mother

teaching a wet clay boy

ballet in the barn

dangerous, borderline seditious.

american men

don’t learn

the five positions.

they work.

shift through gears.

go home.

attend church.

watch football.

do missionary.

it was as if in learning ballet

i was greasing the steep and easy

slope to perdition with lard.

like i was one unnatural desire

from a lifetime of taking

a dick up the ass at truck stops

from beatniks, communists, limp wrists,

tattooed bikers whose leather jackets

held the musk of brimstone.

all of whom, to my grandmother,

represented a degeneration

the rapture would tidy up nicely.

she probably thought hiv

a just punishment for adam

wanting to tend steve’s lush garden.

i can’t be sure.

i never asked her.

her glinted eyes

watched me dance

in the barn with my mother,

and seemed to say, enjoy it,

gay boy.

the wrath of god is coming

and it’s coming quick.

now, she’s dead.

i watched her die.

held her liver spotted hand,

her mouth gaped

in the open air

of the hospice ward.

i wept.

not for her,

for my father.

i witnessed

his cells spark out

no longer a virgin to oblivion.

i don’t miss my grandmother,

i think of her as a tree

afraid of dark soil

turned rich

by worms, sun, rain.

now, the leaves are turning

felt-soft undersides

to the promise of rain,

positioned to endure,

positioned to dance

a ballet of burning wetness

taught in the oldest of schools

before time, before fear,

when light and desire

sent the first stories to us

from the neighboring universe

swaddled in water and smoke.