David Kirby is the Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor of English at Florida State University and the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation as well as three University Teaching Awards (1992, 1997, 2012) and a University Distinguished Teaching Award (2007). His collection The House on Boulevard St.: New and Selected Poems was a finalist for the National Book Award in 2007. Kirby is the author of Little Richard: The Birth of Rock ‘n’ Roll, which the Times Literary Supplement of London called “a hymn of praise to the emancipatory power of nonsense.” His most recent poetry collection is The Biscuit Joint. His website can be found here. ---------
A Hail of Crockery
It’s late, and the fellows have had a few too many,
but what else is new? We’re talking about our breakups,
and we’re all in awe of the one who somehow manages
to keep his exes as friends, because the rest of us can’t
stand the horrible bitches we used to adore, which feeling
is mutual, I’m so sure, and when my turn comes, I say,
“Yeah, I always left in a hail of crockery,” and there’s
a big roar of laughter. Then again, there always is.
Get the picture? Guy lips off, girl gives as good as she
gets, and the next thing you know, he’s out the door,
dishes whizzing past his shoulders. Cut it out, ladies!
We’re not so bad. Actually, we are, or you wouldn’t
be breaking up with us. I guess he wanted to go out
more and she wanted to go out less or the other way
around. Or he wanted zero kids and she wanted five
or the other way around. Or he said Let’s watch
the playoffs and she said Let’s watch Pride and
Prejudice for the seventh time or the other way around—
okay, not that one. But there’s a third path or third way
or third something, according to the Buddhists. Or is it
the Canadians? Wait, here it is: the term “third way” refers
to “various political positions which try to reconcile right-
and left-wing politics through a synthesis of right-wing
economic policies and left-wing social policies.” Sounds
complicated! There’s also “third position” or “third
alternative, which refers to a revolutionary nationalist
political stance that emphasizes—oh, wait, Mussolini
advocated that one, so we’re against it. Let’s see what iconic
American bluesman Son House has to say on the subject.
He says I get up in the morning with the blues three
different ways, I have two minds to leave and one that
says to stay. Boy, does that ever sound right! And now
let’s hear from iconic American novelist Henry James,
who once gave this advice to his nephew, Billy: "There
are three things that are important in life. The first is to
be kind. The second is to be kind. The third is to be kind.”
Easy for you to say, Henry! Forgiveness is a beautiful
thing: “I made mistakes and you did, too, but I’m going to
concentrate on the good times and hope you can find it
in your heart to do the same, no hard feelings.” But who
wants to hear that? Besides, think of all the money you’ll
save. Gas, meals, movie tickets, new underwear, regular
haircuts: you won’t have to waste your pennies on any
of that stuff for at least six months. The fellows are getting
restless; Thomas goes to get another beer, and Mark pours
himself an inch of bourbon, and Dave and the Other Mark
are talking about football and whether or not the new
recruiting class will make a difference or whether we’ll
just grind out another 7-5 season and “wait till next year.”
They don’t want to hear about absolution, amnesty,
la clemenza di Tito: no, no, they want the man legging it
out the door like a guy in an R. Crumb cartoon, the woman
waving her arm in the air like an Old Testament heroine
preparing to decapitate some tyrant, only instead of a sword,
she’s brandishing a sugar bowl, and there’s an arc of cheap
tableware over the guy’s head: pie plate, coffee mug,
saucer, that cereal bowl he’d brought with him from grad
school, the one he’d thought about throwing away more
than once because it had a chip in the rim, but he’d had it
a long time, and besides, he likes it better this way.
Loud and Sarcastic in the Hotel Hallway
“I don’t work all week so you can leave your wet suits and towels
all over the furniture,” he says, then
“Can’t you turn out the bathroom light when you’re
through in there?” as well as “Why do you have to shop
at the hotel stores when everything’s so much cheaper
elsewhere,” all of which is to the point, surely, but why
do I need to hear it, especially at seven in the morning
when I’m trying to sleep after an evening of drinks
and fine dining while he, the good husband and father,
no doubt took his brood to a “family restaurant” where
they dined on chicken tenders and fries and drank from
watery dishpans of Coke and Pepsi? That’s probably it:
he’d be in a better mood if he’d had roasted sea scallops
on a creamy leek-spinach reduction and a nice bottle
of Puligny-Montrachet followed by a single scoop
of blackberry-basil gelato instead of the Chocolate
Monster Frappucino Shake with Oreo Cookie Crumbles
that lurched from one side of his stomach to the other
all night as he rolled around in bed and fretted about
his crabby and increasingly critical boss, the hurtful thing
his father said to him when he struck out during that
Little League game so many years ago, the knock he keeps
hearing in the car engine that will surely cost hundreds
to fix when they get back—that is, if they get back.
And his wife didn’t mean to, but just as he was about
to fall asleep, she kicked him; why’d she have to order
the Crispy Cinnamon-Dusted Apple Dumpling with Real
Vanilla Bean Ice Cream and Our Signature Silky Caramel
Sauce? He hates her. No, he loves her, loves the kids,
crazy about Elvis, loves Jesus and America, too.
No, he hates her, hates everybody, hates himself, damn it.
Yet only a day before, I had been in the Museum
of Modern Art, where I paused before Alighiero e Boetti’s
“Tapestry of the Thousand Longest Rivers in the World”
and read the plaque that says “in 1968 Alighiero Boetti
changed his name by inserting an ‘e’ (‘and’ in Italian)
between his first and last names to indicate that he (and, by extension,
anyone) was not a single but
a multiple self,” and as I read, other museum-goers
came up, and they all broke out laughing,
so happy were they about either their own
multiple selves or the stupidity of the statement or, more likely, both,
since nothing is more amusing than a statement that is at once
true and stupid. Part of me wants
to rush naked across the hall and scare the crap out of you,
but the other part realizes I would only be scaring myself.
Too, the you who is being scared
might actually like it, or maybe one of your multiple selves would.
When I was in high school, I was no good at football, and one day
Coach Garland said to me, “You’re a gentle boy,
David,” though all I wanted to do was kill people on that field.
Look, I have an idea. Why don’t we go down and have
breakfast together? I turned that waffle iron
on and off a dozen times yesterday, and I still couldn’t get it to work.
I Don’t Know Anybody Named Russell But Still
Phone rings and a young woman’s voice says Hi
and I say Hi and she says How are you and I say Fine
and she says I'm pregnant and I say Great and she says
I wanted you to be the first to know and I say Thank you
and she says So how are you taking it and I say
You know I'd know how to take it if I knew who
you were and she says You know who I am
and I say Really I don't and she says I'm your best friend
and I say Well then who am I and she says You know
who you are and I say I do but who do you think I am
and she says You're Russell and I say No I’m not
and she says You're not Russell and I say Sorry no
and she says Shoot I must have dialed the wrong number
I’m sorry and I say That’s okay listen best of luck with that
pregnancy and she says Oh thank you and then
Bye now and I say Bye and we hang up and I wait for
my heart to stop pounding because even though
I don’t remember getting any strangers pregnant I can’t help
thinking Oh shit my wife is going to kill me
though when I calm down a little I think of all the ways
this conversation might have gone like her
saying Of course you remember me we met at a party
a couple of months ago and you said I was
a real good sport or if the whole thing was a joke
and five minutes from now the phone would ring
and a guy’s voice would say Hi this is Russell have there
been any calls for me and then suddenly I’m really
happy that neither of my sons is named Russell or for that
matter anyone I know and then I think Russell you’re
about to get a phone call buddy I hope you're sitting down
---------photo credit for David Kirby to Barbara Hamby