Ana Božičević, Two Poems

I saw a lake
make it into your dream. It was weeping all along the bedpost.
I never seen a lake act like that

and I saw a bumblebee fall from his
home in the rafters
the hole in his laughter
done him in. Poor that bee.

I’m writing in some kind of vernacular
that’s not even my own, just to endear myself to you
am I not endearing?

I’m a fat married girl
and a mushroom cloud
a downright doom boutonniere

blooms behind me all over the lake in your dream but
the bees’ bodies keep filtering it out, as well as
the presence of my parents

and my sister’s bride’s parents

isn’t it nice how everyone’s married and fat?
I love big cars. I fucking love to stuff them up my cunt.

I feel so much tenderness for you
as you sleep…

Please love me
while there’s still days. I’ll never have that breakthrough
Let’s face it, I’ll stay just like this, a little fish, no I mean a dream
here and there—I’ll keep making like
I have personality, not this
little steady flame
in a darkened field. With the wheat bunched up for baling. No,
I’ll never be that sexy. Never to seduce you &
always cry bitterly at advice columns—
I cry to think all those people are just as ugly as me
and on the inside
they’re getting their big break
in front of gleaming listening
shipyards
I just love how lonely it is out on this ocean. Can I tell you a story?
A story:
the big fish jumped and grabbed
the gull of today.
She swallowed. She jumped again but
the gull of tomorrow
stepped back; she kept at it and he was always
just out of sync—This is not how it’s supposed
to go, fish said. Anyway, what kind of tomorrow
can you have without today? Just
sayin —And at that same moment millions of plastic bits
settled on your plate
on the table in the middle of the ocean… What?
The waving tablecloth, the waves. Where’s
everyone? You ate all your
dinner companions, and now—
open the book in front of you. It says:
the world gave itself to you
but you didn’t give
you, grasshopper, back: ah so. This suffering. Is it also a kind of gift?
After the rapture, amid the lions and the limns
you’ll see me and know that
me being into you
was me being into the world. Are you as into the world
as the world is into you? No, I’m not being weird.
What I’m saying is, there is a sustainable energy. My great
aunt, for example, the way she bunched
hay at the base of that little pear tree
to safeproof it from drought. She could barely walk—
but it was the kind of thing you could see from the moon
and
as I walked away from her house I
can’t explain it, the trees were screaming,
a finger pressed from the sky
down on the field the whole of which
was my sex. And earlier in her room I felt like puking
when she told me
she saw only a big light in front of me
but instead of the big light I walked into
big silence and
there you stood. End of story.
Is this what you meant
when you said we should watch some porn together?
When the smoke cleared
I could see the field upskirt all the way to the end tomorrow. We
stood a little to the side of it,
cicadas next to their old dried
shell. The sky there’s classic blue, the campanile goes off
in the Croatian Savannah morning, and frankly
this tomorrow can take care of itself— we’ll know how to be old. What I need
us to be now is nudes,
painted by no-one. Don’t you see the museums are just giant strip clubs
and the backyard’s the gallery where you can touch
every single work— there’s no-one here
to tell us how to do this, except for
the millions of idols
glimmering fluttering turning

I’m staying in this day because
all my friends are still here.