Buoyancy Control Read online

  Buoyancy Control

  Adrienne Gruber

  BookThug 2016

  FIRST EDITION

  copyright © 2016 by Adrienne Gruber

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  The production of this book was made possible through the generous assistance of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council. BookThug also acknowledges the support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit and the Ontario Book Fund.

  LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

  Gruber, Adrienne, 1980–, author

  Buoyancy control / Adrienne Gruber. —First edition.

  Poems.

  Issued in print and electronic formats.

  ISBN 978-1-77166-222-2 (PAPERBACK)

  ISBN 978-1-77166-223-9 (HTML)

  ISBN 978-1-77166-224-6 (PDF)

  ISBN 978-1-77166-225-3 (MOBI)

  I. TITLE.

  PS8613.R79B86 2016 C811’.6 C2016-900582-8

  C2016-900583-6

  For Edith and Salvador, pa que sepas.

  CONTENTS

  Terra Firma

  A mari usque ad maria

  Prologue

  Blend of heat and colour. Bougainvillea bloom in January, cacti buds are sunsets. Scrub dishes, stoke the fire, bring in wood, play a game of dominoes, help Salvador wash his car. Walk in the groves with the dogs, throw them pieces of orange. Occupy restless hands. Salvador makes perfume. Fingers measure and pour the alcohol. The bottles smell like candy. Twice a week the shrill siren of a tortilla truck passes through El Llano. Dogs have flies around their mouths. Women in television commercials are whiter than you are. Learn to say café con leche; this is what a woman’s skin looks like. Think of a man once loved, planned a life with. Bike down a gravel switchback, launch head first over the handlebars. The bike on top, the sun, a frying pan branded to back. On Saturdays, the market in Montemorelos. Boiled corn mixed with salsa and crema fresca. Kids sell toy cars and Spiderman dolls, cowboy belt buckles. Silver purses and pink lipsticks. A scruffy one-eared dog trots by, nipples dragging like udders. Whoever sucks her dry gets a mouthful of dust. Fifty-cent bottles of beer are sweeter than milk. A man lifts iron birdcages out of a truck, glint of green-tipped wings—palomas; their muffled throated coos. At the market, look for a mortar and pestle to grind chilies. On New Year’s Eve in Monterrey, eat pale cow intestines in gunpowder broth. Shots are heard all evening; children set off firecrackers and twirl sparklers. The neighbours play mariachi until six a.m. A car alarm runs for hours before the battery gives out. Even in rain, no decisions are made. The dogs stay inside, except the ones at the baseball field, digging through wet leaves at the foot of the bleachers. Leave a beer bottle on the pitcher’s mound, a bundle of roadside azaleas. Back at the house,

  cookbooks exasperate. No recipe for meatloaf. The rain pounding on the roof is worse than the hail of pecans let loose by the night wind. The cold and its contagion. Water moves toward a bed of cement into a pool, the way mercury slides along kitchen tile, thermometer in shards. Stick hands in the meat, raw and slippery. Lupita, next door, calls Adrianna and gives little cakes to take home. Enrique’s roosters claw the dirt. Always a cockroach beside the shoes, an exoskeleton. In the kitchen, a fire in a small dark corner. Hold hands over until they blister. Outside the dogs carry oranges like softballs in their mouths. There isn’t anything to do but pass the time. Dangle feet in the irrigation water. Bougainvillea, hibiscus, buttered sunflowers. Dogs follow to the river. One finds a turtle and bats it around. I can’t hold on to anything.

  Terra Firma

  The Hanged Woman

  1.

  If Tarot were to read itself while driving through Kansas,

  boxes crammed to the roof, salt streaking the car,

  it would turn up the hanged woman.

  Indecision. Twelfth trump card.

  The traitor. I need a clear road scraped of debris.

  The sun doctors the land pristine, like the white gold

  on mother’s wedding band, or the sugar bowl

  with its blueberry handle. Even clichés of bone

  or glass are less predictable in this light. Their protrusions shrill

  as teeth. My friend says she believes in the sublime

  as a religion. The word muddy on the brain as we make

  the drive south. She speaks of mercury molecules, the split

  of threaded cells that fall to the floor, skim the linoleum

  as silver balls. The highway glimmers. Soon we’ll cross

  the border.

  2.

  Sunday in Nebraska there’s nothing on the radio

  but Jesus. The sun against snow is blinding. Every sin

  is sexual. Child sings off-key about the morning star.

  Banjos and mandolins play Handel’s Messiah. At the Rockport

  gas station you can buy Betty Boop alarm clocks, snow globes

  holding churches. In Nebraska every gas station is proud

  of its kitsch. A room at the end of the hall is filled

  with dolls and blank stares. Toddlers with fuchsia cheeks,

  missing pupils, white curls. One sleeps

  on her side, goldfish lips, pink eyelids and

  half-closed mouth. A still, open shell.

  3.

  Cross the border

  at three a.m. Mother refuses to leave the car,

  protects my sister’s wedding dress.

  Everywhere babies and cars with furniture

  tied to the roof. First glimpse of Mexico.

  Circling the gates, searching for the way in.

  Drive through Monterrey early morning

  streets slick. Dad strains his eyes. Location signs lie.

  80 km to El Llano, then 94 km.

  Pick an orange at sunrise when the stars are bright.

  Suckle the fruit.

  Juice slips from lips as sweat gathers

  at the small of my back.

  4.

  bellinis the tiny windows on planes her lips

  on the dance floor jellyfish acid grip

  stench of old pennies pulling into the ditch

  to masturbate

  the small blond boy who eats rice and beans

  while watching Ms. Packman a seahorse

  liquid that breaks and gushes as amniotic fluid swell

  of the tide when a puffer fish is troubled a hand

  on your thigh the streets between two and four a.m. balconies

  rain surging from the sky old typewriters habits

  that should break the word lynx the Neptune fountain

  at the Macro Plaza in Monterrey the marbled woman

  water glazing her breasts

  5.

  Each grain of sand is the earth

  if you let it. What hatches in your palm

  without knowing. The leather seats

  bake your groin. Drive into the city where

  tar melts the streets. Stop at Tortas Alex

  for a sandwich. A sticky ball of baby

  spiders nests against your corduroy purse.

  They spill onto your lap and spring into the world

  writhe against your thighs. You jump

  from the car, swear, swipe at your crotc
h.

  Bodies fly in all directions.

  Proposal

  Let’s make babies, something solid that slips

  with its own mucus trap, screaming at the world

  betrayal with its first breath. This has nothing to do

  with love. It’s basic sorcery. What you can do for me.

  We climb out of caskets

  once sawed in half. Birth magicians

  like breath.

  Like the sticky remains

  on the Trans-Canada, the deer whose legs

  I ran over in the middle of the night. The substance

  we are after, all colour, a freshly painted room

  where the smell silences those first few brain cells.

  A man pushes two fingers inside me and groans.

  The liquid phase. You taste tart, he says and lowers

  his mouth.

  Remember the truck stop cherry pie

  I ate the night we couldn’t get to Oklahoma.

  The quiver of fruit

  membrane on my tongue; how a jellyfish dissolves

  on hot sand. Think of the baby

  who thrust out, the placenta

  its inverted twin. Think of my mother

  who couldn’t hold her bowels as she pushed

  out my sister, the nurse trying to convince her,

  pressure in the uterus. And what he moans

  in my ear, trying to reach deeper.

  A canker in the mouth,

  a dark hair wisping from the breast.

  A dark hair wisping from the breast.

  A canker in the mouth.

  In my ear, trying to reach deeper,

  pressure in the uterus. And what he moans

  out. My sister—the nurse trying to convince her—

  who couldn’t hold her bowels as she pushed

  its inverted twin. Think of my mother

  who thrust out the placenta

  on hot sand. Think of the baby

  membrane on my tongue; how a jellyfish dissolves.

  The quiver of fruit

  I ate the night we couldn’t get to Oklahoma.

  Remember the truck stop cherry pie,

  his mouth.

  The liquid phase. You taste tart, he says and lowers.

  A man pushes two fingers inside me and groans,

  where the smell silences those first few brain cells.

  We are, after all, colour. A freshly painted room.

  I ran over, in the middle of the night, the substance

  on the Trans-Canada. The deer whose legs

  like the sticky remains –

  like breath

  once sawed in half. Birth magicians.

  We climb into caskets

  with love, its basic sorcery. What you can do for me.

  Betrayal with its first breath. This has nothing to do

  with its own mucus trap screaming at the world.

  Let’s make babies. Something solid. That slips.

  The World, Divided

  A shell finds you when cleaning out the pack

  at the end of a trip to Playa del Carmen. Ascend

  from the ocean floor, drag everything up

  with you, let it dry in the sun. The endoskeleton

  hammered into rock by the snarl of a wave.

  We are considered complete

  on our own.

  There are separate stalls

  in the restaurant bathroom, twin

  rolls of toilet paper. Double-ply. Matching sinks and

  mirrors. You see both of yourself.

  Slice the cavity into duets, divide

  the leftover organs.

  Only the heart sits in its solitary sac.

  You couldn’t get onto the ark

  without her.

  The Summer I Was Her Hedonist

  One night she is determined to photograph me naked, guttural.

  Her cabin at the acreage, spread-eagled in her hatchback, kneeling

  behind the driver’s seat, aperture sealed between thighs.

  Diffuse. Shudder. The mirror opens; exposure. Our shadows

  stilted. The syntax of my back slack-shift, off-kilter. The double helix

  of our mating. We produce nothing

  but the stick of the shutter. The blue-black filter of night licks

  the dim tungsten bulb that burns against the nervous corner.

  Would these photos tell us more about ourselves? Kaleidoscope-bound

  contortionists. The dream of us furrows its way into night.

  Ever After

  Our wedding day should be full of butterflies:

  fossorial apprentices to the sky. The best man

  holds the glass lid tight over the sleeping,

  sunken eyes. The twisted breeze.

  The sun huddles, pigmented. Ignites strappy shoes,

  garments, the electricity of damp thighs.

  The crowd hungers and assembles.

  The lid opens; prism-scaled wings,

  large batting eyelashes crumple to the ground.

  Half-dead and drunk on dying.

  The Summer I Played With Poly

  I feared confrontation.

  Eggs whipped at the panes of front windows,

  up the ladder to chisel them off in

  August fever. A martini in the face, ice-blue

  run off, mouthwash sting sticky

  condensation of breath. Or simply

  tears that flow like glacial melt where, as kids,

  we’d place our warm sodas to cool.

  But she didn’t know and for that

  I was grateful. I was kicking the stars with both feet

  leaving my purse on her car as we drove out of town.

  The fisherman’s wife returned it the next day

  the leather glued together from the Sunday sun

  a peacock tail of feathered eye shadow dripping

  like extra paste on a schoolboy’s collage.

  It sticks to the table when the teacher comes

  to inspect just as her parents came

  and we bolted, eight a.m.,

  the heat already unbearable.

  The Planets Never Align For You

  the more furious the star, the brighter it burns

  —David Hickey

  How furious you are

  with your heart and the sheer will of it

  to hold tight the crux

  of capillary function, the dank scent of iron,

  the dark that never left. Pump away.

  The hidden spool of arteries foil

  even the best of us. The fossil corked

  from the chest. You have never felt betrayed

  quite like this. The head of a mollusk pokes out

  from the husk of longing. There’s no shame

  in forgiveness. Enough pillow talk. You are here

  and the day burns brighter for it. The fist

  clenched, pudgy organ just as furious.

  Mince arguments into a Möbius strip.

  The moist socked-feet of moving on. Contempt grilled

  on the barbeque, black-market thoughts;

  shucking organs for soup. How punctured

  your breath. Survey the space

  where your lover’s furniture once lay,

  those chalk outlines where the dog huddles.

  A headache in the airport bar

  next to the woman who eats tuna out of the can.

  Insomnia tonight, rebellion tomorrow.

  Pulling teeth. And still, they insist,

  the heart is the measure of success.

  Only He Knows the Story of His Precious and
Particular Life

  An intruder, I watch you down at the edge,

  toes curl around rough planks, knees bend

  then straighten, fists on hips, a dip

  of one toe in the frigid mouth. I could butt out this cigarette,

  drink a bourbon, draw an SOS in the dirt

  in the time it takes to make up your mind.

  The jump must be done without thinking. Before the brain

  takes over and compensates for pain

  or wracked conscience. Smoke gathers

  into lungs with one collapsible breath. Wind rushes

  through your ears and upsets the balancing act

  this tiptoe riot.

  The cracks in the two-by-fours fade

  from the sun’s filtration, the gait of the fractured

  wind splits knobs in the wood. My toes mimic

  your toes. Your knees flex,

  half-bowed to an audience of duck shit splattered

  on the dive plank. Power’s out.

  Inside the cottage, ice cream floods

  the freezer. You and, consequently, I

  are stuck. The fold and bend of

  your gargoyled shadow bisects my heart.

  The light, spliced with cloud, injures us with

  a glib fondle of hope. I bring you to life.

  Unsuspecting marionette. The strings in my hands

  paper-thin (tug once, twice). Your arms levitate.

  The tightness in your neck. Pull back. Release.

  I understand. The time I flung myself down the wooden steps

  at Eagle Lake I lost footing or footing lost me, face down

  on the dock, knees scraped and half a toenail cockeyed.

  Later, I jumped in the body and swam the length of it

  algae-soaked cryptids nibbling my ankles.

  I could comprehend drowning. My frog kick quickened.

  The past is an undertow. Even the dock spiders couldn’t keep me

  from scrambling back up the ladder. In the here-and-now