Heather Gluck

A Cowboy is a Dead Man

johnny i’m only listening to american iii: solitary man.
it makes me think i’m out at midnight:
no moon, no stars, but then how are my leather boots
shining white, and what light is passing through this field
that makes the dewdrops gleam like little weapons.
my denim soaks through to the muscle
but this is not gonna be how they take me,
no matter how soft that noose
or how sweet that hangman’s kiss.
i’d sooner ride my own brown horse down and force her knees
to a buckle till i holler out a scream because it’s good
to let the air taste your stomach and bite back the acid and know
you’re the alien, and you’ve got the goo.
now ooze on over the plain.
you’re sure to rise again.

now that could’ve been a madcap time, johnny, but it had no sex
nor no truth. i could’ve tasted that
but i’m not you. i’m sitting inside gray walls, at a desk, at a table
at papers and machines and all i have is metal,
which is bitter, and not whiskey, which is sweet.
the tightness of my muscles is my shaking leg
on a worn-in couch and the strain in my eye
watching the tv set,
with the great nothing, time, passing me and laughing.
the throb in my shoulders from a day of looking down
the cramp in my back from a life
of hearing you.

johnny how could i tell you about the beers
and the breakfast beers
i could’ve sucked like the juice from moldy fruits.
i never entered a woman in lowlight lovin’.
i may have combed her hair,
and what tenderness there,
but i could not testify it.

johnny my spurs are still kicking up the lost breezes
red morning dawns
my stetson catches sun like a battery.

My Mother and Father Go on Their First Date

and there are Rottweilers there.
He calls her and asks
if she’ll pretend to be his wife
in the Rockaways. He’s going to buy
a house from an old couple
and needs a wife. Sure, why not.
On the drive they talk about
how long they’ve been married,
and the rings he borrowed from
his brother and his wife,
and when they get there,
there are Rottweilers.
They growl at my mother
and she clutches her hands to her chest
and waits to get back in the car.
He tells her to cool it.
He needs to convince the
owners that he is buying a house
for his wife and his family, but he is
going to sell it. He leans over
the couple and my mother leans
toward the car, and he grins
at them before they’ve agreed
to sell. He grins at her and she
smiles back. On the car ride home
he leans on the horn in triumph.

Response in an Emergency

As they push him through the doors, my father tells me
that he’s dying. People can die thousands of times
if someone is there with an oxygen tank.

I think of my blind dog at home, tremoring, face toward
the beige wall. He jerks at my touch, and when I roll him over 
to rinse his sores, I remember: a dog is a little toy.

I put my mask on to talk to my father. I will not preserve
you too. He lies and I sit perfectly uneasy, flinching
at footsteps in the hallway and the beep of the machines.

Toy Vignettes (excerpt)

I

Koala plush in underwear,
flat gray thing with big hard eyes
and big soft ears,
I yanked on your little briefs
till the seams that tied them
to your middle broke.

Oh, to be sewn into your clothes!

Lying on a finished puzzle—Gustav Klimt’s “The Kiss”
—soft gray thing against gold lovers,
whose eyes are closed in glittering embrace.

Yours stay open, to see.

IV

Barbie with a haircut,
my sister at fifteen
shaves the back of your head
and presents you to music.
You roll out of the bathroom in the convertible
and look the same.

Your best friend’s detachable pregnancy
belly has a baby that curls inside.

The twelve of you live together,
sing silently, make love.

In the stillness of your smiling faces
life flares through.

About the Author

Heather Gluck is a poet and translator from New York. Her work deals in sickness, irresolution, and guilt. She is the editor of the literary magazine Some Kind of Opening and she loves a good persona.