April 12: Proof, "Autoerotic Asphyxiation," Matt Gavin Frank

Just to prove to you how crappy my poems are, I'm going to prove how good my friend Matt's poems are.

This poem is from Matt Gavin Frank's newest collection of poems, The Morrow Plots.  It's titled "Autoerotic Asphyxiation."

Now, please excuse Saint Marty.  He's going to slip into the nearest bottle of Prozac.

Autoerotic Asphyxiation

The world goes pink with buffoonery,
billions of squirrels

running away.  In their cheeks
acorns arrange themselves

like dog stars, wait
for the constellation

that looks like a camel.
A mesquite jealousy

in humplessness, the stockings
we save for just such an occasion.

We haven't spent
this much time here

since we were seventeen,
when mortality was a barking sky,

an animal a continent away,
this documentary

about Morocco.  Like the squirrels
we move without headlights.

You speak equations
into my ear that would take

the stocking to solve.
Canicula.  Ligature.  In the next

room, we hear my father's
one sharp cough, wonder

if we're not breathing
enough.

Let's just prove how crappy my blog is, too