Category: Craig Morgan Teicher

by Craig Morgan Teicher

I was alone inside a book as I’d wished. It was

fifty years from now. I didn’t live that long.

The book was lost, in an attic, a locked trunk,

a storage space, under rubble. It was the last

copy, the only. Immortality seemed a memory.

My journals were lost or incinerated, those fervent

transcriptions and wonderings and hopeful

evenings, scripts for wild lives unlived, unloved

long since disintegrated. Whatever power

I encoded had escaped and moved on. I was

neither I nor eye nor lie. No one cared or could.

Even what was left of me wasn’t. My bones

were as brittle as a text, religious, with no teacher.

Looking back, there was no future, no future.

from To Keep Love BlurryFind it in the library

Copyright © BOA Editions, Ltd 2012
Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, Inc.
on behalf of BOA Editions LTD.

by Craig Morgan Teicher

The mouth works all its life to spit a vowel—

some long sound with feeling fenced in

by the sharp stops of a few consonants, a howl

and a pen to keep it tame, a calm din

that won’t drown out the life it tries

to say, but won’t deny, either, that hell

is the sound we’re born making, the cry

in the womb, which we tell

and tell—too much, of course—

in the hope of exhausting it. Stated plain,

there is no other subject—rejoice, remorse,

repress—all words stand for pain.

Over and over I say—what else can I do?

All words stand for pain. Fuck you.

from To Keep Love BlurryFind it in the library

Copyright © BOA Editions, Ltd 2012
Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, Inc.
on behalf of BOA Editions LTD.

by Craig Morgan Teicher

You, dear Brenda, are at home

with our son, whose remarkable

days have him laughing

like any kid he isn’t. When

we made him out of the wish

to make him, we knew nothing

except our own parents couldn’t be

close or far enough.

Our son can’t run, which may

be our fault, we’ll never know,

like sitting on separate daggers.

Love is the need to escape

the beloved, isn’t it? So you can

pretend you can’t cause any pain?

It’s a mutation of guilt, isn’t it?

I hide beneath sheets, close

to your belly, and apologize

—to you, to my mother, to our son,

to motherhood and fatherhood,

to all those now fleeing

what they love. It’s grotesque,

but I will cough something up,

a bloody string of self, to tie

you to me, me to him, him to you,

then we can all go our ways,

separate or not, or nowhere, and pluck

that string, feel each other

tensing, teasing the other end.

You may not understand—I don’t

either—but someday we might:

Someday shines on families like light.

from To Keep Love BlurryFind it in the library

Copyright © BOA Editions, Ltd 2012
Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, Inc.
on behalf of BOA Editions LTD.