1.
Paperclips plugging skin pores,
eye holes, the paleness in between freckles.
It is not such a bad way to go.
String wrapped around the paperclip tips,
and tugging up, holding you up
against the wall and door frame and window.
Without it you would fall.
2.
Perhaps you want to fall
and then you could forget the paperclips
and make a paper plane out of lined paper,
blue lines and that one red one.
And call the paper plane “Peace”
and you could pilot it to places far away,
like “over there” and “not here” and “wherever she is now.”
Or you could use plain paper if the lines are too intimidating,
too much like paperclips and paleness,
too much like wrinkles and growing old together or a sideways, lower case “l”
which stands for, “like” and “lick” and “luck” and “love.”
3.
I once opened a book to find your face inside,
Smashed by the print, leaking onto the pages that followed.
It was hard to read the book, and it was harder still to shut it up again,
with your eyes and mouth telling me not to, asking me where the bathroom was
to freshen up. I understand now how cruel it was to take this book into the theater with me,
during the boring play with no intermission. I could hardly tell you these things
with the play going on, but only raise the pages from my lap
to face upper stage left, where actor #3 was giving monologue #9,
and it was all going okay until you screamed my name.
4.
Perhaps you like the paperclips,
They remind you of childhood games like hide and seek
and stab. Perhaps they remind you of your mother’s nails
and her letter opener and the acupuncture your older sister performed
on your feet when you tried to sleep at night.
Perhaps they remind you of Sunday School
and how it was easier to bend and unbend them than to listen.
Perhaps, though, they more likely remind you of me, and the way I clipped back
our bird’s wings with them, and the way I used them to keep together
stamps I would hesitate to use, for cheques I would not want to send,
and the fettuccine noodles I allotted to us, here’s one for you one for me, until one serving each,
paper-clipped,
so we would eat what was written on the back, sometimes side, of the box, and nothing more, or less.
5.
I was handed a pamphlet on the street, outside the Washington Monument, by a child
who told me, nice green shoes. Inside was a lesson on bathing and on the last page was a pop-up of your name, misspelled. One more step, and I was in dog shit. The girl laughed, and so did your stupid, misspelled name, popping left and right, up and down. It was silent, the way you always laughed. Silent, mouth closed, but I could always see up your nostrils.
6.
They say “I never meant to hurt you,” but they do not mean with paperclips.