Margot Schilpp

MARGOT SCHILPP'S The World's Last Night is forthcoming from Carnegie Mellon University Press. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Southern Review, Denver Quarterly, New England Review, Solo, Verse, Puerto del Sol, Meridian, American Letters & Commentary and other journals. Her work is included in the upcoming anthologies American Poetry: The Next Generation (Carnegie Mellon University Press) and Poetry of Exile (University of Iowa Press). She has been a fellow at The MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. She lives in Salt Lake City and edits Quarterly West.
 
 
 
 

AGAINST GRIEF

Tonight the cuttings of sense
On the wind
Rock me raw. The grass flies

Away from the earth.
The clock pauses to remember.
One of us is singing.

One of us is dead.
The remnants of an old bruise
Seep back into the skin.

They absorb, loud
At every touch. Swollen
Capillaries sing out,

Serenade the wound in the meat.
Another time, someplace else,
This ghostly LP of memory

Might have been a backward
Skizzle of a DJ's whim,
The moaning of a young country

Blasphemed by a turntable.
Every lyric might have reversed
To residue and disappeared

On the backs of strangers.
But I sit on a blanket in the dark.
A peculiar tune in a minor key

Finds the back of my throat.
Its odd crescendos choke the melody back
To a bare quorum of notes.

The air, invisible staff
Where the notes hang,
Composes itself.
 
 
 
 
 

ON THE NATURE OF INTERROGATIVES

I'm on my fourth gin and tonic
when I realize the answer
to most questions I've ever
asked or answered is pretty
close to the same: Of course /

of course not. Each serves
equally well if you're asked
if you've already eaten lunch,
or whether that clock is correct,
or if the burning smell coming

from the kitchen is something
we all need to be alarmed about.
You know the answers
to the other questions - square
root of 64, the number of

angels unfortunate enough
to spend all their time proving
that ridiculous head-of-a-pin
question, - even if they come
to you in vague flashes and

squeeze out from your brain
the recipe for your grandmother's
lasagna, or all those admonitions
not to ride motorcycles without
a helmet, even if the struggle

to recite them causes the seventh
dwarf's name to slide into
the abyss of nonremembrance
forever. It's only our bad luck
that the questions are changing,

that you're just as likely
to be asked about communicable
diseases as what type of dog
you had when you were ten, as
that one query almost everyone

gets around to - just how fast
you can finish something - even
if the right question would be
to ask if you could manage it
at all, if you could perform

the miracle of completion well,
rather than quickly, well enough
to want to sign your name
where no one will have to ask
Who did that? Where can I
find another one just like it?
 
 
 
 
 

GLASSES WITH SUBLIMINAL MESSAGE

These glasses deliver a subliminal visual message for self-improvement to the wearer. They do this in such a way that although the message is continuously in front of the eyes of the wearer, he or she is not conscious of its presence. A variety of messages preprinted on transparent adhesive discs can be made available.
                                                    - U.S. Patent Number 5, 175,571 (1992)
 

Expect that there will be abuses, some wise guy
Who wants to see whether they'll erase his wife's
Entire memory, the bulimic who uses them

To help her purge, the executive who wants some
Extra competitive edge. If we want
To better ourselves, why not wear a shirt

That announces I'm not a smoker anymore!, My liver's
Shot - what's your blood type? Or If you see me
Eating, strangle me! Why not get a little help

From the outside world? There's no reason to hide
The shame - everyone can help police you.
And if they work, why focus on self-improvement

When what's really wrong is war and waste and violence?
But a program to put these stickers to work
On politicians and CEO's, folks who make decisions,

Little pictograms showing a gun circled and red-lined,
I could go for. I can see them dissuading people
From paying their employees too little, from hiring

Part-time workers to avoid paying benefits. Still,
When I go to the movies, I shut my eyes during previews.
I don't want to head to the lobby for a Coke and popcorn

I didn't want. I don't want a box of Jujubes appearing
In my hand, the other clasped around a little change,
My face's stupid grin slow to fall during fade-in.