Poetry: Selections from Jean-Luc Fontaine

Ode to Nigel

I read about a seagull  

named Nigel living off

the rocky coasts of New Zealand

 

who’s been trying to mate

with a concrete decoy for over five years.

I’m sure all of us can relate:

 

trying to woo

a rock-stiff statue of a date—  

the argle-bargle as you twist

 

spaghetti around a fork,

desperately thinking of ways

to buoy the conversation.                                                                                                                                                                                       Like Rachel, who stared

blankly at me as I told her

I hunkered in New York

 

for two years, praying

my poetry might take off,

like a pigeon scared

 

from the girders under Penn Station,

to which she laughed and said,

But no one reads poetry anymore.

 

Or Emily who watched me

tumble down the side of a sandy mountain

straight into a caucus

 

of cactuses, then stared

at her smartphone—

her Instagram feed flickering

 

in her egret-white eyes—

as I plucked each green spike

from the trunk of my thigh.

 

So tonight, instead of flapping

the small wing of my thumb

through Tinder, I pour

 

myself a glass of water,

and watch YouTube videos

of Nigel—watch as he dances round

 

his decoy, spinning round

and round, like a whirling

dervish forever trapped

 

by the everlasting tornado of love.

Ode to Flies

For the last hour,

I’ve swatted at the small

platoon of flies

 

that have invaded

my house; I’ve rolled

the glossy magazine

 

on my desk

into a tube, then tried

to bat them out of the air,

 

like a little leaguer

desperate to hit a ball.

Until, I realize

 

I was in the middle

of paying my electric bill;

that I have to call

 

my doctor about the dull ache

in my boomerang back.

And soon, I have completely forgotten

 

about the three flies

climbing up and down my window,

like spies suction cupping

 

their way up a glass skyscraper.

That’s how the past works:

during the day, it might try

 

to fly at your face,

bomb its ugly, hairy body

into your head, but with a flick

 

of your hand it’s gone,

and as you busy yourself

with chores, work,

 

that rogue chunk of cheese,

you forget about the past.

But at night,

 

when you’re standing

on the cliff of sleep,

getting ready to cannonball

 

into the dirty swamp of dreams,

that’s when it returns.

When you’re bone-tired,

 

too drained to even lift

the sheets from your body,

then it beats its silk wings

 

softly against your skin,

then it rings its dark bell

gently in your ear.

Ghost

The week after I lost my job

  for showing up

blackout

 drunk to work,

     

I plucked the pollen-

                             hefted weeds

growing

       from my garden,

              then peppered the soil

with ghost pepper seeds.

 

                        Every morning

I woke up hungover,

                        but still I pulled

my jacket over

   the stalks of my arms

                    and filled

my watering can—

          tried not to retch

as I lowered

           the neck over that pebble-

splotched patch of dirt.

Before lunch,

      I would take the bus

from one side

                  of town to the other,

 

handing out resumes,

     shaking the nicotine-

           smeared hands

of managers;    

 

and in the afternoons,

                       I would try to forget

about the bleached bones

          of my fridge, the bills

stacked high on the table,

 

as I scythed the dead leaves

 from my ghost

                               pepper plant.

 

And on those days,

   when I schlepped my TV

         or my dinged-up microwave

to the pawn shop,

I would take a glass

              of vodka,

walk out into my garden,

 

and admire

      the small red buds

starting to ember

            on the green.

 

So, weeks later,          

             when I saw the red ghost

pepper fully grown,

 hanging from the branch

like a Christmas

          stocking,

I plucked it and sank my teeth

                    through half—

 

my vodka left untouched

     in the freezer

as I rushed to the kitchen              

       in search of something

 

to quell the fire

      blazing

              inside my mouth.

Jean-Luc Fontaine is a Tucson based poet. He enjoys looking at cactuses and drinking cheap, instant coffee.