Jim Ferris

WHAT IT TASTES LIKE

The first time I did it I was somewhere
else, watching, waiting for the moment —
so that's what it tastes like — the hard, moist, soft
moment when: the first time I had her take
my brace off, strap by leather strap, the beast
comes off, and then she went one further: rubbed
my leg, massaged my shameful condition, and I came
as close as I had ever been to living
outside my hardened little self.
How can you blame me for marrying her?
I didn't know what I was doing down there,
but the light was good. Wish I'd thought to rub
my leg — wish she had too. Made that part up.
The leg too. Made up the marriage,
her death, my life. The taste was real.
The hardest thing is the hardest thing was
the fucking brace.

* * *

SURROUNDED BY WEALTHY PHYSICIANS I CONFESS

I am wearing a used
shirt, purchased at the Goodwill
store on Mission Street in San Francisco
the afternoon of Monday, July seventeenth,
the year two thousand, shortly before five o'clock.
Seven o'clock back home. My shirt used to be blue,
when it was new, and it is still
blue-like, faded to a loose blur
of almost blues, almost purples,
almost lavender at the seams, this shirt
wears its own yoke of history, I never submit
it to starching, I am draped
in its quiet shirtness, cuffed and collared
by its patient, sleevey joy.

* * *

THE WAY OF THE CROSS*

Count the myths: the hero
back from the underworld returns lame,
scarred, changed. Is this why
they fear us so: in their wholesome bones they know
we know things, we have wrestled with the dark
and light, we have come limping back,
sloe-eyed, dangerous.
Never again one of the crowd, we stand,
sit, lie apart, easy and impossible
to know, marked by where, by what,
there is no who: the fruit
of this tree pick with care: why
they fear us so:
what they fear
we know.

* * *

FLOURIDE

It was hell to be a poet in those days,
nobody would pay attention unless you
were crazy, drunk all the time, or dying.
And think of the cleaning bills, and all that tea
you had to drink. Today, we're lined up
at the cafes - you could eat poems
for breakfast, lunch, and supper, never run out,
never even get a cavity:
                                         poems
are fluoride
                    for that empty space
inside.
         I just heard one
on the radio, this guy took a header off
the bridge but what a poem. The government
is putting poems into the water supply,
and that is why we're not what we used to be,
we're not quite so sure of ourselves, and that
is killing me, I mean, my teeth are stronger
but when I stand in line at the café
I sometimes wonder why I'm here, why
we're all here, and even absinthe won't settle
my stomach, I lean against the wall
and dream of a time when the poems were out there,
all regular, they'd fit into a box,
                                        click,
                                               you could
put them away and get on with business,
you didn't have to think or feel so much,
those poets would be crazy, drunk, dying -
you could get on efficiently
with your own
decline.

"What it Tastes Like" and "The Way of the Cross" are from Ferris' book, The Facts of Life. All poems appear in his new book Slouching Towards Guantanamo.

Jim Ferris: bats right, throws right, votes left. He is author of Facts of Life and The Hospital Poems, which Edward Hirsch selected as winner of the Main Street Rag Book Award in 2004. His book Slouching Towards Guantanamo is slated for publication in 2011. Ferris, who holds a doctorate in performance studies, has performed at the Kennedy Center and across the United States, Canada and Great Britain; recent performance work includes the solo performance piece "Scars: A Love Story." Past president of the Society for Disability Studies, he has received fellowship awards in poetry as well as creative nonfiction. His writing has appeared in dozens of publications, ranging from the Georgia Review to Text & Performance Quarterly, from the Michigan Quarterly Review to weekly newspapers. Ferris holds the Ability Center Endowed Chair in Disability Studies at the University of Toledo.