Michael McNeilley is editor of the Olympia Review and the Zero City Poetry Website and has published in many many lit magazines including Mississippi Review, Poet, New Delta Review, Chicago Review, Slipstream, Lilliput Review, Bouillabaisse and Exquisite Corpse. He may be reached at mmichael@ix.netcom.com.





Pull of the Abyss
--------------------------------------------------------


I walk out to the mailbox and though
there is no letter from you again, there is
a free trip to Japan,
and a box of chocolate-covered haiku,
and I eat the haiku though they are
strictly off my diet,
and I forward the free trip to Japan,
which is not addressed to me anyway,
to its rightful recipient.

I walk out to the mailbox and find
the path particularly long, unusually steep,
rutted and rocky but dry at least,
and the mailbox hands me a letter -
the letter is from an ex-wife -
she is gloating about her recent sexual experiences
with a prior ex-husband -
and I take the letter back to the house with me,
up a particularly steep and rocky path home,
and repackage it with a cover letter
to the editor of _Handjob_,
and glide back down the hill to the mailbox
which accepts this gift in the spirit given,
swallows it like cough syrup,
with a tiny burp.

I walk out to the mailbox and am moved
by the mailbox's inner beauty -
I open the mouth of the mailbox,
pull out its long aluminum tongue
and it regurgitates to me a t-shirt catalog
from the fat guy clothing store,
but the fat guy clothing store catalog t-shirts
shrink after a few washings
so that fat guys can't wear them anymore,
and I put the catalog back in the mouth of the mailbox
like a wafer to its tongue
and close the jaw and pull up the
red flag.

I walk out to the mailbox alert to dodge
the drug-crazed grannies of death,
who drive Plymouth minivans up and down my street
tranqued out on multiple prescriptions
of Medicaid serotonin reuptake inhibitors,
valium and alprazolam, health store valerian
and reds from the bingo palace,
cursing me through their rolled-up windows,
waving bony fingers I try to ignore -
and find the mailbox full
of birthday cards.

I walk out to the mailbox just as
the sun comes out, blazing like death,
and Ed McMahon appears from behind a bush
waving a big sign FREE! - FREE! - FREE!
a check the size of a billboard rises
behind him and he yells to me,
"this check could have your name on it, if...."
and I run back to the house muttering
"I'm sorry I cannot afford to accept
any more gifts at present."

I walk out to the mailbox
and instead of your letter I find
a small white envelope from the IRS
and I know it is not a check
and I feel like a '78 Firebird with one
plug wire off, straining up a mountain road,
sputtering and missing, the hot smell of
burning oil, radiator hissing, wheel drawn by
the pull of the abyss.

I walk out to the mailbox and the mailbox contains
an inflatable wheelchair,
and I pull it out and blow
into one tire and blow into the
other tire and blow up the frame, the seat,
the back, the little wheels in front
until I am too tired too tired to stand
and I sit down but the wheelchair grabs me,
pulls out huge rolls of duct tape,
tapes me down and I am
glad you are not here to see me,
wheelchair-bound.

I roll out to the mailbox and find a card
from the government granting me health,
and a bill from the government for
"health and other services,"
but the bill is more than I can pay
and I push my wheelchair into the envelope,
seal it with a kiss, and send it off,
postage due, and still I feel better.

I walk out to the mailbox and find
a woman is leaning against it,
holding a bottle of Jameson's -
she wears a tiny black dress like a message
from inside some smaller bottle,
her red hair the color of sailors' delight,
and I ask "how may I help you," and she says
"do you have any grey poupon?"
And I say no, no I only have regular American mustard,
the yellow kind, taxicab yellow mustard like
for corndogs, and she says, "that'll do, then,"
and the evening begins without error.

I walk out to the mailbox and
I walk out to the mailbox and
I walk out to the mailbox and turn and
cannot see my way home, the mailbox glistens
like an iceberg in the chill winter morning air,
foghorns in the far and bitter distance,
and I stand on the slanting deck of my life
as the band strikes up one last tune
and deck chairs slide past me into the
cold Atlantic, whispering
your name.











As you eat white asparagus with mayonnaise


As you eat white asparagus with mayonnaise:
single black olive, on the end of my finger,
and was it to be chardonnay or semillon?
The fragrant bright pink salmon waits, poached with dill sauce,
as you eat white asparagus with mayonnaise.

Your lips, parted in the beginning of a smile:
and as you gesture with the chilled and supple staff,
a brilliant white on white and cometary flair,
a dark curl falls across your forehead. A glint of
gold chases the peripheral flash of your hand,

as you eat white asparagus with mayonnaise.
I break a roll, my eyes upon the slender stalk,
hand halfway to my mouth, overcome against my
will, all thoughts of this dinner past my reckoning,
as you eat white asparagus with mayonnaise.











blood on the moon
------------------------------------

cold on the porch swing
watching the leaves fly
her profile in the moonlight
she wants me to help her
it's not advice she needs
it's taken her whole life
to get this far
back to her first birthday
back to the instant the bullet
landed in her crib
splashed with her father's
blood

it's the need to be quiet
she thinks aloud
to say nothing ask for nothing
want nothing but to be left alone
not to make a sound
or I could be next she whispers
it's the need for silence
across her lips like the back
of a hand

and this week one therapist told her
go out on the beach
go out in your car
and scream it out
scream down the silence
once and for all

and another said comfort the baby
find the child within and help her
she is inside you and she is afraid
tell her it's okay
that nothing will happen now
that you will protect her

and I said no
you're right to think
these are bad ideas
you can't learn to scream it out
after all these years of silence
you can't just give up and bring
that feared attention in

or split yourself up
turn yourself into an object
to divide and comfort
you need to integrate not divide
and I don't know what the hell
I am talking about but it
makes sense for now

it was never a suicide she says
never a suicide I always knew that
he had too much to live for
he didn't really leave me he never
meant to leave me
and the words rush on
but I can't I can't confront her now
she's old and she's my
mother and I'm still
afraid

and I pass the brandy
and tell her it's okay
some lies are so much safer than the truth
your mother has her own version
no matter what happened and
it's true to her by now
there's no changing her
or her mind
and you don't need
to go through this every year
on your mother's birthday
you can never know
what really happened
you have to stop
you're safe now and whole
and it's over

she moves slender
under the robe
but it never ends she says
I'll be walking or driving or eating lunch
and it's all there again
the terrible
explosion then
the echoing quiet the blood
then nothing

she'll die I say
she's old and in bad health
yes
and that will be the end
yes
and we hold each other wrapped
in silence at the prospect
her aroma like woodsmoke
the swing slowly rocking
watching the treetops tremble
as low clouds
blow witchlike
across the man
in the moon




-----------------------------------------------

Coffee
______________________________________


Out his kitchen window, he watches
a bus pull away from the corner.
He holds his coffee cup,
swirling it although there is
no coffee in it,
considers taking a bath.

She always told him not too
much coffee, just the one cup
in the morning, and that he should
remember to bathe every day,
as these were just the kinds of things
he would soon forget
once she was gone.

He places his cup among others
in the sink. The bathtub is clean
and damp, still warm.
He sits on the toilet
watching as the tub fills.

By custom, he draws too much
water, so that some always runs
out the overflow as he gets in,
leaving behind as much water
as will fit,
making a sound he always
liked hearing.

He images a spider trapped
in the overflow, washing
down the pipes.
As he slides into the water
he thinks of her, so many years,

and although she is not here
to scrub his back he smiles.
His toes surface and submerge:
he watches them break
through floating rafts
of bubbles, then sink again,
like a shipwrecked crew
of drowning men.

After his bath he watches the water
circle down the drain,
but without his glasses
he cannot tell
if the whirlpool drains
with or counter to the clock,

although he understands
or thinks he remembers
it always turns the same way,
like a dog circling nose to tail
on a carpet looking
for that one best spot.

The word "coriolis"
surfaces slowly and submerges again,
and eyes closed he watches it
as from a moving vehicle,
experiences it as he would a neon
sign flashing past

in the nighttime.
He makes a note on his mental
blackboard to watch closely
next time which way the water
circles as it drains.
He smiles again,
as he can have
his coffee now
that he has bathed.












Drunk in the Afternoon
____________________________________________________


Drunk in the afternoon, as
the Budweiser salesman takes pictures;
the room is full of suits.
The last time I washed this shirt
was in the bathroom sink at Alice's place -
dried it with her blowdrier.
It looks pretty good
I must say.

Drunk in the afternoon it's
50 cent Budweiser night
at Millie and Al's, door prizes stacked in a booth.
The waitress has forgotten my name
but remembers to ask the waitress who hates me -
she's read my poetry.
Hell don't blame me, I told her,
I just write the stuff.

Drunk in the afternoon and all the bartenders are here -
bartenders from all shifts, it's a big promotion.
Only one of them is working -
she carries herself quickly from Budweiser cooler
to service bar. The rest of the bartenders are drunk,
drunk and rowdy, unusual for them not
unusual for me these days to be

drunk in the afternoon.
There's a blonde on a barstool,
she looks like the rest of my life.
They are passing out free tickets with each beer.
They'll have a drawing later for door prizes -
I'm passing out wolf tickets:
if I had a job I'd go to it but here I am,
nearly five and the government workers
begin to come in.

Drunk in the afternoon and
the blonde leaves, carrying money in her hand.
The Budweiser salesman slaps backs and places napkins
squarely under bottles.
The bartender is doing too much walking
back and forth behind the bar -
she turns up the juke to compensate
for the increasing volume of noise or conversation.

Drunk in the afternoon as the blonde returns -
she's done something with her money.
the Budweiser salesman has met another
Budweiser salesman; they deliver four free beers to
a table of women, but damn it they miscounted,
oops they say and deliver one beer more, five women look
much like four, a palindrome of women as it works both ways.

Drunk in the afternoon somewhat alone,
as Alice applies for a job with some asshole over dinner.
I can't even afford her dinner, much less a job.
Love without money must be more precise I suppose,
and Alice doesn't drink beer -
beer is bad for precision and the figure.

Drunk in the afternoon I pour down
my 50 cent beers collecting tickets for the door prize -
look how I've cleaned up my act,
no speed no phenobarbital no smoking -
just beer beer beer and I'm drunk but straight as
the drawing begins and I win two T-shirts -

I win a light-up wall sign.
I give the wall sign and one of the t-shirts away.
Tony's here and Ron, Barbara and Leslie but there's
no one to talk to. I put on my t-shirt,
it says something about Natural,
and I sit here waiting for you,
wishing you didn't have to see me

drunk in the afternoon,
knowing we will have to talk
this one time more.
And the lights recede, the people form a backdrop,
even the bathroom seems too far away -
and if you come here now you'll get
no closer than the rest. There's no solace no cure
no replacement for things we know not well enough to miss.

Drunk in the afternoon, our barstools sway
to the rhythm of some 50s song -
cracked voices sing along, it sounds okay to drunken ears.
We celebrate our various endings,
drain our beers and order more.
You can't beat the price -
Is it cold out? Is it cold out?
Try a little antifreeze -
and we're filled with nothing but beer and beer
and memories
as the sun sets
drunk in the afternoon.



Say Goodbye
_________________________________


It's like Frank said when
he worked in the pound,
killed all those dogs

in the evacuator, sucked the life
out of them in the oxygen
deprivation chamber:

he took a lot of them home,
the cute ones, the ones he
couldn't bear to kill -

the ones he wanted to save,
and they ran out in the
traffic,

broke their chains and disappeared;
one got killed in a fight,
another ate rat poison.

One way or another they died,
every last damned
one of them.

One day someone came in with
5 perfect poodle puppies
and Frank was told

to kill 4 and save one. The choice of
who lived and who died was left
up to Frank,

so he took the runt of the litter,
the one who seemed he could
adapt

and he killed the 4 best ones,
reduced their air pressure
to that at 30,000 feet,

where they puked their hearts out
like all the others he
"put to sleep,"

and took the little one and put him
up front in a tiny cage,
where he would appear

pathetic to the general public,
some of whom selected him and
took him home that very day,

but who returned the next week
for another puppy, saying
the one they got

had "just died. He was fine and then
he died. The kids are all
broken up" they said.

And they wanted to know if there was
a money-back
guarantee.

You can't save anybody, Frank decided,
the system takes over
and that's that.

After a while Frank stopped
taking any of them home.
Frank modified

his objectives, but you can't say
he ever really gave up on them.
Like Frank said,

"I don't want to save them, not really,
I just want to rub their
fucking ears."

And he rubbed their ears, the furry discards,
the smart ones, the dumb ones,
the old and the young,

the rejects, the crippled and lame, the ones
with bad markings, the wrong coloration,
With problems beyond

their understanding. And each time before
he put them in the chamber, he looked
into their eyes.

And if there was no salvation, if there was
no redemption, at least there was
someone to say goodbye.

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