From the Mortality Sessions

Gabrielle Calvocoressi

Pop Song

Here I am drinking Prince Vladimir tea

as the city smolders and the smoke starts

to clear. Prince Vladimir. Who is he?

And does he really smell as good as that

cup you held in the summer of my thirty-

third year. I bet his hair is the color of

the honey I bought at the market the other

day, the one with the comb still in it,

all those Russian women clicking

their tongues. He must be from Russia,

a place I've never been. Have you been to Russia?

Amazing the things I don't know.

Like if he sleeps with his arm thrown

over his eyes like I do or if he ever went

dancing and ended up with some girl

in the stall of the bathroom. Do princes

go dancing? They do in the movies.

Like Dr. Zhivago. Did they dance in

Dr. Zhivago? I know they rode sleds

and had misunderstandings and heartbreak

at train stations with women in gorgeous

white furs. Did you see that movie?

Amazing the things I don't know. Perhaps

I'll call you on your new fangled phone.

I don't like the phone or to be more precise

I feel like the phone is a country I don't

understand, everything muffled

as a girl touching your face with mittens

on her hands. I bet he sleeps all day.

I bet he has a blanket made from bear's fur

like the one my grandmother took from New York

to Paris. I've never been to Paris.

That is a crime, a broken zipper

on a Dior gown. Oh how I'd love Paris.

I'm sure he's been to Paris. And you've been

to Paris, that much I know. I'm going

to go and eat Le Tigre all day and write

poems and go to the palace of Yves Saint Laurent

where the women wear pants (even Catherine

Deneuve) and wait for their lovers

who walk down the street with their shoes

in their hands because it's late

and everyone is a prince in the dark

after a certain hour and enough sipping rum.

Some things I know. Perhaps I'll call

on my ridiculous phone, antiquated as Dr.

Zhivago or the name Vladimir. I bet he sleeps

all day with his arm flung over his eyes

like me, dreaming of all the places I've never been.

Brief Essay

Do you remember if Clit Club was on Friday or Saturday? I can't remember. I think Meat was on Friday and it was for the boys. And Clit Club was on Saturday for the girls. I guess I should say men and women but I was so young then that I didn't really think about that sort of thing. And one did feel young over there in the darkness. I remember you could watch girl on girl porn downstairs. Not the kind I found in my father's drawer when I was looking for the remote control (though I watched that too) but rough cut, grainy dyke porn, which isn't so much for me anymore but has it's charms and certainly is something closer to real. Though I don't know if real was what I was looking for at The Clit Club. It all sort of felt like a movie. Standing downstairs watching the girls fuck on the screen, doing things I really hadn't done yet. Standing and watching and feeling my friend tap my shoulder and say she'd be back in a bit, the way the girl standing with her would sort of look at me for a second and I'd feel a bit shy. Do you remember the Clit Club? There was a stage where butch girls would dance like go go boys. I remember standing with my friends watching this short-haired woman in her baseball cap, t-shirt and boxers that were packed. And how the girls with long hair and short skirts would get on the stage and get down on their knees. I watched her put her hand in their long hair and hold their gaze before the girls would bend their heads and pretend. I was still trying to figure it all out. What went on in small bathrooms when my friend's went inside? I knew what I imagined happened but really it was a mystery to me.

Chatter

O the pile of fish gleaming

So you can't even see the

Woman saying, "Honey, what's

Your number?" You stare at her

What seems like hours.

What keeps you from just

Going round the counter? It's

Not so far and then you'll

Get to hear your name

In every language, hear

How the flounder might fit

You in its mouth, how the urchin

Would open so you could

See its soft palate, how when

You move just past the tines

And push it says, "please"

And tightens round your finger O

The mysteries you turn away from

By simply heading for the train

Or picking up the phone, tap tap

Tapping on the keys waiting

For the right time when all around

The world is jostling you,

Telling you it's ready.

I Watch Jack Johnson's Surf Movie While My Wife Is in Hawaii

It's almost as good as being there, in fact it's even better because I can stay in bed all day with the blinds drawn and the television on and all those friends on my wall can talk to me and I don't have to say a thing.

It's almost as good as being there, being here staring at the blue-green water which is something like the color of the necklace my grandfather gave my grandmother for their wedding and I got stolen because I wasn't paying attention when we got off the plane.

I like to think of my love in the world with all those people and me lying beneath the white sheets staring at the boys inside the waves and then at naked girls on the other screen I allow myself a couple times a day.

I like to think of the people on the hill I can see from my house. The one next to the Hollywood sign. You can see the ocean from there. In the afternoon the men hike with their shirts off and stare each other down. Sometimes I see two disappear into the brush.

Which is almost as good as being there, having my sweatpants eased down while I listen to the dogs bark and catch a glimpse of the water glistening all the way across the city. I imagine the little figures bobbing on the boards as my head rests back in the branches.

After Pasadena. Meanwhile by the Pool.

Jasper left to get ice cubes from the Italian designer three houses down because he said ours didn't have enough integrity.

I was lying there listening to The Doors, who I didn't really understand, and the girl put on her clothes and went looking for the band

(who may have been just one person who did something with car radios and timpani)

I was lying there with my hand in the water and then you showed up in that Von Furstenberg dress of yours with a bag of blood oranges in your hand.

And I shaded my eyes and asked what time it was because I really didn't know.

And you said, "Ask the Lizard King" and now I think it's funny that I didn't get the reference.

Conversion Theory with Canyon

Any way I look at this city, it's clear my life is changing.

If I look to the sign in the hills where the rock bands camp out

Or listen for the way she breathes in the dark theater, near

To me but untouchable as the hawks that circled as I ran

Through the dusk while Passover started its slow song in me.

Any way I look at this city, it's clear my life is changing

Like a girl who slips out of her clothes to fuck in the pool at night

While coyotes root through trashcans and mimic her moans

Or listen for the way she breathes in that dark theater, near

The freeway, the Bowl, near the hip-hop star's house with the record on

Loop. How she echoes in me, You're all I need to get by in this world

Or, Any way I look at this city, it's clear my life is changing

Close enough to a song I heard a band rehearse a few doors down.

I heard a girl start singing and fell asleep and did I dream

Or listen for the way she breathes in the dark theater? Near

My hip that waits for her hand, near my skin that grows dark in the sun,

Near my mouth sounding out each letter of my name and hers.

Any way I look at this city, it's clear my life is changing

Or listening for the way she breathes, near in the dark theater.

Detail of Los Angeles in which the Bandleader Does Not Appear

In the painting one angel got left out

In the name of John the Baptist

and a few more rocks. When you're

On the road there's one less angel

In this city. I lay by the pool

And watched the plane

Fly overhead, my hand reached

Up and it seemed I almost touched

The belly of the thing.

Jasper said, "You're in love"

And I thought of the day we found

The house in the canyon

How we didn't think it suited us

Until we walked to the balcony

And I could see Catalina. Oh

White walls, wood floors, coyote

in the car port. Jasper brought

every sweet boy home.

I'd wake and find them sleeping

Naked by the pool. There were parties

That went on for days. A man in a white

Shirt read "The Lotus Eaters" aloud.

A woman placed her hand on my thigh

And said, "Where are you from?"

Pasadena. Land of my father, land

Of the rocket builder and crisp pressed

Shirts. The woman said, "Yes. But where

Are you from?" I took her upstairs,

Watched as her clothes came off

And she sank to her knees. I looked

Out the window at the bandleader's house

A canyon away. There's a blue in the painting

That the monks asked for specially,

"Ultramarine" The girl said, "What

do you like?" I liked hearing the music stop

and going there. I liked sending the tailor

and the tiger away. All those girls

walking down the hill toward Sunset

and some other band. I liked

the sun coming in and warming the blue

sheets. I liked leaving before the bandleader

woke. How I'd pick a grapefruit from the tree

and eat it as I made my way home.

O Mary Don't You Weep Don't You Mourn

What is joyful

O what lifts us up

Between the mouth's

Opening to sing the sound

He tells you to and the sound

Coming out O Mary was a girl

Like all of us at the dances

In the fields with her friends

Watching the one boy

With his hair in his eyes throwing

A ball to his friends

Or at the market where

He brushed her hand just as she

Noticed the way the light made

The pomegranates not brighter

But deeper and wanted to

Tell him O she wanted to

Tell him so over the din

Of the vendors, the cheese maker,

The sheep's heads lined up

And staring O staring with their

Cloudy eyes at her staring

Beyond him so as not to tell

Him how she'd make a place

For him if he'd just look up

And ask her to.