Man-Made Lake on a Tab of Acid, Wisconsin, June 2019

These trees bear no relation

to their water. The camouflage

blinds on the island fool no beasts.

Something is wrong. Can we call

a flooded hole a lake? Our rental

shack is filled with glossy prints

of waterfowl frozen in the air,

southbound as their swamps

are drained for asphalt. This

reservoir is the basin of a local

superstore, where families bathe

on weekends and wave to us on

the shore next to cheap mansions.

We sit on a blanket in the yard,

braiding strands of sharp grass.

Jong works on cars. “Burn oil!”

he roars as men shred wake

in ridiculous Mad Max watercraft.

He sees a world fired on pistons,

lubricated in sweat. I decide I like

him, through his eyes float away

in the drift of his face. Tommy looks

concerned. They must see it too. “Did

you…” No, no. My vision wobbles

in the breadth of the grey water.

I’m reminded of The Great Lakes Cycle

by Alexis Rockman: five large, terrible

canvases of regional surrealism. Now,

they become me. Thousands of years

of history are condensed in a moment,

algae the size of famous shipwrecks,

loons beckoning the ghosts of industry,

though our body of water bears no history.

I am seeing through the world’s worst

painting, and art is my souvenir anchor.

There is only you, my man-made lake,

my house of 1000 corpses. I would like

to speak to the manager of the Triad.

Your product is horrible. I no longer see

the mountains as mountains. I demand

a refund. Jong is shouting at the boats

like disobedient children. Tommy’s

knitting is spaghetti in their fingers.

The lake is like a lake, if you dare call

it that, placid and uncaring, and if

it could speak, it might say this:

Driving Down From Two Harbors, Minnesota, June 2022

A mosquito flies above my hands on the steering wheel. Swatting it nearly veers us off into roadside construction. I readjust, and continue as if nothing happened. I’ve been on this road a hundred times. I have never been in an accident. My taste of near-catastrophe will fade as the flavor of the wretched Frappuccino I ordered at the Hinckley rest stop will never become a concrete memory. I am thinking of the little deaths we commit every day without knowing it. How many insects I have sent to their grave by shutting the back trunk and forgetting about them. How some illness makes our behavior more prone to spread it. What is the total number of blades of grass in history? What is the cruelest remark that has been made behind my back? There is a number, and there is a statement, and these things will never touch my mind. There will be flights I board with turbulence, fists clenched over the armrests, and the flight will go on. A mosquito lands on my arm. It does it’s business, leaves a lump the size of Idaho, and fade to nothing but an itch's memory. In the space where radio signals mix, I cannot describe the sound I hear

Black Square, Kazimir Malevich, 1915

Kazimir dreams on a bed of yeast. The party dines in his chambers, as millions wake

with bodies laced in shrapnel. October lies forever on the horizon. An oracle drank poison

so the future can no longer be trusted: donning two faces, grinning twice, it’s inhuman

to smile back. Better to keep quiet, to keep all expressions in the margins of a square.

Oil slick pigment blisters like baked mud. Scaffolding rises from the pitch, caked

in dry sediment. Brush strokes of saffron & vermillion, strata of jetsam wishes,

coagulate under a thick black borsht that age crusts to a tin pan. What traces remain

lie fossilized at the bottom of a tar pit, monument to the forgotten war he died

believing in. The lone farmer tills grey soil in an empty field. The scientist traces rainbows

with a chalk stub. The mechanic polishes thin sheets of steel. But the artist bellowed

answers into the dark tundra, praying for fire and rewarded with silence. Tourists to Moscow

visit the Tretyakov, disappointed to see this checkbox filled. The tomb next, or the cathedral?

Interpretations of the shape can be read on a placard, translated into seven languages.

It is just an artifact. After Stalin, we are encouraged not to reflect further.

Mushroom Hunting in Central Illinois, May 2020

Tim says the best way to find morels is to gaze at the sky. The dead elms, those empty

branches, are your best bet. He carved a walking stick with an example of the thing on top,

a bulbous oval grooved with wormy rifts, along with a plastic Aldi bag I stuffed

into my back pocket. The trail to the woods leads out from behind the wooden cross,

where he buried that dog he was so fond of, Pirl - an acronym: Poodle Is Really Lucky -

adopted at ten but well trained, damn happy mutt. When he and Lisa move

to Springfield, will that marker be just another souvenir in his next billiards room,

a gesture towards an unmarked grave hung next to the demo derby trophy from ’84,

old yearbooks, two beer can statues with spring-loaded styrofoam genitals,

county fair caricatures, the Looney Toons memorabilia? I was envious

of all of this space to stretch out, having been cramped in my apartment

for so many days. The path, if you can call it that, what with all the branches

poking into my face and body, led down to a creek bed with a trickle of water

still deep enough to splash mud over my white Adidas when hopping it wasn’t enough.

About five minutes in, he gestures me over. One bona fide morel, yellower than I imagined,

pinned between his index and his thumb. It’s the color that I focus on most, distinct

from the grey underbrush, although the shape is distinctly alien. If I didn’t know

I could eat it, I would be repulsed, wouldn’t touch it for the life of me. I find eight

or nine before we move on, as my skin collects ticks and bug bites. He says

I’ve got the eye for it, but I’m positive I was just lucky. To even suggest such a thing

strikes me as so deeply midwestern, like that smile he makes when he tells a joke

that you’re supposed to laugh at, his tune turning on a dime from empathy to frustration.

It takes a lot to respond without irritation when he says “I love you like a second son”

when he knows so little about me. The house was filled with his inventions, bizarre and specific

optimizations to life’s most basic tasks. Am I to be solved? The morels were soaked

in water for several hours, and appeared in the following two dinners,

once sliced onto pizza, once deep-fried, both served generously with beer.

The Subway, George Tooker, 1950

For a time, I knew the names behind closed doors. This was a different life, and then I was a different woman, one who turned the key with the waft of fresh sourdough, a simple favor, a toothy smile. I knew days without meat. I danced to Bing Crosby. I adorned the wings of Mustangs with white stars. At night, I drove to the theater. Donald Duck perfumed himself in bacon and eggs, working munitions for Hitler. We laughed together, and arrived back to an empty house. I woke alone for the morning mail.

I did not know that names could shut behind themselves, sealing their cracks at the base of each letter. Afterwards, I moved to the city. Every corner held wandering eyes cloaked in beige paranoia. Shadows were the crosshairs that swelled beneath my feet. I understood intelligence no longer as a means of understanding, but collection. I carried an enemy underneath my red dress. I couldn’t fake it any longer: my work at the office was coming to an end. Beyond the turnstile, he saw me again.

The Cockettes Go Shopping, Clay Geerdes, Haight-Ashbury, 1972

Job? Is that a three-letter word or a four-letter word?

Everything was free then. Freedom was as bendy as a plastic straw,

warpy like a commune’s walls drawn by Venus' magnetic influence.

No, that’s the mushroom speaking. Speaking of, the Cockettes

were finally ready to take out Nixon, but required protective vestments,

holy armor fashioned to repel mind control. So it was off to the store.

From their perspective, the flea market was liquidating everything –

even Scrumbly, left alone naked in a shopping cart, eyes dilating

like pearls in a pool of mascara. Reggie pawed at exotic fabrics,

swiping a bolt of gold lamé, while Sweet Pam, the High Priestess,

nicked a bardic tune across the ruffles of an eggshell skirt. Costs got

left on a tab written in clouds, paid in sacramental magic and

anonymous love. Come to our show! Our gift back to you! Hippies

snuck into the back door of the Palace Theater, beating the $2 cover

for “Hot Greeks”, a lesbian odyssey of pig Latin showtunes interrupted

by Ms. Achilles writhing on the floor, fried on MDMA. The alchemist brews

his potions knowing the price of rapture. That heroin is no good for you,

you know. Opens up all the wrong doors. And from one freak

to another, let me lay it out – the Aquarian age isn’t all groovy. Dreams

have dissolved on our tongues and only left the taste of cold metal.

All that belongs to the earth has vanished into air. But frozen in your

photograph, you are ageless, even as your colors bleach in sunshine.

You forgot to overthrow our government. New York won’t "get" you.

Karposi’s sarcoma is just a word lost in a textbook. So today, smile.

Stare at the stars for as long as you’d like. I can’t tell you the future.

This simple world is yours: a torn dress, a hit of acid, and the beach.

18 Crossings Over the Irene Hixon Whitney Bridge

1. When you grow up around beautiful things, beauty is background and you are left with things.

2. Things become precious in their absence. (Where did I put my wallet?)

3. I passed underneath the bridge hundreds of times before I gave it any consideration. Until I had left, it was just a thing.

4. The Irene Hixon Whitney Bridge was named in memory of a wealthy socialite. Her husband, an energy baron, is credited for bringing the Twins, the Vikings, and the Northstars to the Twin Cities.

5. Minnesotans don’t like to talk about the Northstars.

6. Two ways of seeing the bridge: a) tectonic plates pressing against the other’s weight, two arches resisting the weight of the other framed by a rigid latticework of iron beams b) a dated architectural curiosity whispering the glamor of the late 80s.

7. The bridge had faded before I remember. Only after I had gone did they restore it to sunshine yellow. Before, it was white and blue, a cloudless sky in the biting cold.

8/ My brother told me Minneapolis is the greatest city in the world for three months. The rest is winter. It is one reason I left.

9. Minneapolis is a city of bridges to places I don’t want to see again.

10. At the beginning of August, a bridge collapsed across the Mississippi. I don’t have a good memory for names, only things. It took me years to place where it actually happened. I must have crossed it hundreds of times. 13 people died, 145 were injured.

11. The collapse was all anyone could talk about. Now it is just another thing.

12. We’re driving across the bridge, entering the city. I say, “did you know this bridge collapsed in 2007?”

13. I know this city like the back of my hand, but the city no longer knows me. Riots tore the heart out and everyone is calling for blood. Commuters are afraid to take the light rail.

14. “Don’t go into the city unless you have to.”

15. My mom’s boyfriend doesn’t understand art. He makes her happy. She paints watercolors of Elvis Costello, and they play music together. We walk through the Sculpture Garden. He takes a picture in front of the big blue cock.

16. I take the steps up to cross the bridge. At this height, fairy rings appear on the manicured lawn. A poem is written across the inside of the bridge, site-specific, composed by John Ashbery. I had been passing beneath him all these years.

17. “And it is good when you get to no further. It is like a reason that picks you up and places you where you always wanted to be. This far, it is fair to be crossing, to have crossed.”

18. When you return to old things, you find yourself in the background, graceless in the presence of beauty.

Rainbow Flag, Gilbert Baker, 1978

“The first thing I found out is there are no royalties for a flag.”

Hot pink was our first casualty. We gave birth to it in a garbage barrel

on the rooftop of the Grove Street community center, baptized

in a broth of avocado pits. We named it sexuality. Sex was innocent.

It wanted to be given freely, and we made it sell in bulk, our Judy Garland.

Our studio pushed it to the brink, and it turned to barbiturates. But sex was

just a color to us, and produce was expensive. We couldn’t bear its spending habits.

And that’s life: red, a swollen tomato grown to be cut on sharp enamel, exposing

its flavor. Fruit is the most sensual of foods. By design, it is to be taken. Did you know

Florida oranges are sprayed to keep their color? A nutritionist claims “the benefits of

what’s inside outweighs the residual effects of the exterior.” I believe in Citrus Red 2

more than the emergent report on a rare cancer seen in 41 homosexuals. Our capacity

for healing has always been framed by the sympathy we can afford it, and I’m running

out of time. And what the hell is a yellow brick road? Sunlight fashioned into brick,

a technicolor marvel winding to a city of unnatural green. Gilbert Baker was born

seventy miles east of Dorothy. He left the army and learned to sew. It became his purpose.

He considered too late that the dimensions of a flag were the same of a credit card.

Turquoise and indigo were removed from the flag next. Magic and serenity, words

I can’t grasp two generations late. In our parade of ghosts, I don’t know what I bring.

Mishima gutted himself for a lost Empire. David sealed his lips with needle and string.

Gratitude was never listed in our hierarchy. My heroes never thought beyond their end.

I follow a crumb trail with the courage of a snake, a razor for a heart, a pipe bomb for a brain.

Purple is the color of a bruise, blood pooled to mend a wound. It serves no purpose after

the blows have ended. Spirit flags in the winds of comfort, and I will be remembered

for living in a bland, colorless comfort. I’ll get you, my pretty, and your little dog too.