Tony Trigilio

 

Lawyers for the Animals

She was folding clothes, always, Ada the table-dancer from New Orleans, her age grows on her like ivy and she works double-shifts when someone calls in sick, folds neighborhood clothes behind her six-inch black-and-white TV. She spent the night in the laundromat in a blizzard last year, an entire city of cabs nuzzled in warm garages, bottle of Amaretto and a couch braced and double-locked against the door. Now after two straight days of rain she stacked clothes in front of her, as if fastening a chain of paper clips together on the last day of an office job--maybe no going-away party, nothing left to mark time but someone else's paper clips. She tells me that she's doing whole wardrobes these days, there's so much flooding. I tell her ducks are swimming in the park. If she won the lottery, she would buy the Cambridge Ramada Inn and convert it into a hotel for animals. She would hire veterinarians to check on them daily, caretakers to feed them. The hotel belongs to animals. She told me, look, we got lawyers for everybody but not for the animals. They got rights, too. Last year, some girl in Quincy got bit by a Doberman. What do they do? They said they gotta kill the Doberman. But who's gonna stick up for the animals? How do we know that girl wasn't teasing the dog? That's why we need lawyers. The next day, Ada's ducks, an armada, sailed plots of grass where we stood last week straight as bankers parcelling them bread crumbs. My downstairs neighbor paddled his girlfriend to work bobbing in their rubber raft, a dog swimming beside them, snout pointed to the sky.

 

Open Windows, Downstate Illinois

If sawdust
spoiled

it would smell
like this:

burnished,
flagging,

an open
barn

throwing
caution

to the wind,
procrastinated

until the mail-
man makes

his last
Saturday pickup.

This late
drive back

to Chicago,
cows lurch

against
a tacky

breeze,
waiting.

They need
a couple hours

to gentle
them down.

 

Milwaukee Avenue Prophecies

Lean on my staff, my robe stiff in the heat. At night my nose runs cold like soggy bread. I fell too many times. My God stepped down from the sun, I drowned in the blood of my own heart.

I am happy because I had my weed today and got some more when I came home. I can relax and keep praising my Lord. I'm not scared because my pastor's not scared.

We hide. We do not see straight. We lie. Only mad Gods demand martyrs. Sometimes when I meant to touch him I encountered a material, solid body. Other times when I felt him, his substance did not exist at all. We lie. Christ was killed so that we might not be.

I can go to sleep. Although I still cry, I hear the cries of all my babies. One died with a brick embedded in her head. I see them laid out. I remember. One God one sun one rain. All the same.

They cuff your thumbs so your limbs stiffen, you hang in brittle flax. My teacher hung from the ceiling but died of starvation, his crimson yellow robes fell like an old curtain from his body. They made me wash his robes for a new prisoner but they'll always smell like him, sandlewood and wax. Never forsake him even at the cost of one's life or as a joke.

I'm ready. No we aren't. Help me Lord. I feel happy when you praise me because I feel happy when you give me the glory, because I feel happy when you give me all the glory. I feel happy when you remember who I am. Lord help. Please Lord. Help me Lord. I feel happy when I am loved and the sex is right. I am the Lord, precious Lord take my hand, lead me on, precious Lord, lead me on.

Parson said remember Christ at Gadarenes, two thousand swine choked in that sweet place in the sea. A witch tied to a wood-pile, shrieking, splits open the earth. Next day, they who fed the swine fled, ash was real and the legion still among us.

Happy. I love Lucy. Feelings. Love love love, these are the feelings. I also was upset at the large churches stealing from my people. All people are the same. I am love. Live good and smell good. Yes I am. One God one sun one rain Amen.

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Stealing "Estes for City Council" Signs

Fingered them
           from every front yard
the 2-mile stretch
           between lake cottages
and where the city begins.
           Took no photos of the fire,
my lighter the only one
           that worked. Took nothing
of the husky pock
           ashes we left--
all I have is you
           atop that heap, one sign
in your hand. Sun half-gone,
           light falls deeper
behind lid, beneath water.

The Worst

If I take a bath, the worst
that could happen I'll slip
and fall. He's piddling
in his garage won't hear me
I'll die of a broken neck,
if the worst can happen it will.
I won't hear the timer buzzing,
I'll overcook the food, start a fire--
he's puttering tools in the garage
won't hear me scream, if the worst
can happen it will. Turn on
air conditioner right now,
but if the cord overheats,
starts an electrical fire, he's playing
in the garage with nails and screws
and caps and lids won't hear my screams
if the worst can happen.

Swinging Man

He's come wasted, hungry,
Jackson platform
commuter outpatients
dropping coins.
Chicago swings all night,
Division Street empties
like a cat just out

of the box,
ears prickly turrets.

Each sound could be
the bird it is--
what's stretched to us
feels tight to him.
His violin
attracts the sound
of friends, notes that

depart now.
Silence should be
newsworthy
between trains.

Summer is another comedy,
this clear morning
thorny, more warm

than it really needs
to be. Above us,
first and last days,
end times. For once,
you can feel.
Old men shirtless
rearrange flowerpots
on windowsills.

I smell the sea
this summer, although
everything turns to oxide
and the subway

has its own sense
of smell, enters
you like meter.

Holds its breath.
An old man
touched himself today

a musician studying for
your last dollar bill.

His collar, scarf
secret thermal pants--
a warm subject unfolds
tucked away in liner notes.

 

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