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Benjamin Schmitt is the author of three books, most recently Soundtrack to a Fleeting Masculinity. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in the Antioch Review, The Good Men Project, Hobart, Worcester Review, Columbia Review, and elsewhere. A co-founder of Pacifica Writers’ Workshop, he has also written articles for The Seattle Times and At The Inkwell. He lives in Seattle with his wife and children.
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Burden
We can’t escape the heat
there’s no AC in this city
so even in this dark room
the sun peeks between the blinds
exhibitionist watching me as I sit here sweating
that sick bastard is having fun outside
wearing nothing but a trench coat
rain boots and tighty-whities
exposing everyone he sees
I’m listening to The Beatles
songs overjoyed with sadness
dancing with my elderly inner child
so many are talking about politics today
so many are outraged and upset
and they will be again tomorrow
it’s like another layer of this heat
making us feel sticky and grotesque
as we all take more and more clothes off
revealing stretch marks and scars
Maybe I’ll move to Svalbard
find a shack so I can hide
from polar bears cruising the streets
like hip teenagers skipping school
it will be cold there
like the love that makes you hold on
this room will have to do for now
the sun is flashing friends of mine
mocking them as they run away
the darkness in here is light
like black flames engulfing depths
and imaginations in prehistoric caves
*****
House
Light drowns in clouds, sinking down
to a suburban street and in this overcast
wreck of sun corpses pale limbs
and faces come to rest outside the houses
on this block. Here, gossiping gardens
invite you in for conversation; frank fences
don’t want to see you around; the house
with the red door has a low voice like
a Hollywood actress from the fifties;
the bright blue house is always talking
absentmindedly about the rocks in her yard.
Mary watches it all from her window.
She suspects her house looks sad, brown paint
mumbling about the slights of the past.
Mary herself is sad. Her dolor has spread
through cup stains and scratches on the plates
ever since her boys left her here all alone.
Must a house take on the moods
of an owner? Surely, felicitous houses
must contain the morose from time to time.
Surely, her boys must love her for all
the messes she cleaned with rags
and silence. More sun corpses descend,
after a few months of hunger Mary
finds herself refreshed in their rotting light.
*****
