Fever Rising
July 10, 2011
Co-Winner Academy of American Poets Prize
Published: April 22, 2010
My greatest fear
is that you go to the vending machine
with another woman.
That I pick up my dollar,
and the doves fall out.
That god has a funny hat.
My greatest fear
is his hot. His hot and hot water.
That he perforates the lakes,
the dry snap twig,
the done chaparral. Those golden hairs
of come and go. My greatest fear
is that the vulture
is a flying piano. That his spread fingers
tremble, tremolo, as he throws a
hoop hoop in the jade tree.
My greatest fear is that god
is a silo, a satellite dish, a stalk of wheat,
specific as a bee. God,
I’ve always wanted
to be a crawfish in the Meadowlands.
I’ve wanted to be letters, like bodies,
churning in space. I’ve wanted lovers,
or better, the whole human race.
I’ve wanted fear and fair pleasure,
wanted a god to give the actor’s body.
Wanted god to give a thallowed candle.
For fear to give a play light. I’ve wanted god’s own fear,
own beauty mark a spot. I’ve wanted a fearing—
a god—a woman that falls,
wanted the universe to groan
and grow to keep them.
I’ve wanted fear, and then god,
a woman alone,
a woman, like god, breaking fluid.