summer of the stink bug

summer of late rain and the deathly purple color of potato vines. summer of bad love. summer of polluted city water. summer of the canal. summer of red wine. summer of asceticism. summer of the attic in my parents' house. summer of the attic at jessie's orchard. summer of rachel's bed. summer of city walks. summer of new names tacked on the old mourning. summer of application. summer of denial. summer of one fist to the low plastered ceiling. summer of the mushroom farm. summer of the canadian orchard. summer of niagara falls and the french room mates. summer of my fingers in my hair. summer of pulling. summer of harder. summer of my fingers on my face. summer or the plane ticket. summer of the train and the bus tickets. summer of the black gut. summer of homer. summer of roussel. summer of wool slacks. summer of the long laugh. summer of the other. summer of my fingers in my mouth. summer of get that bad taste out.


a long bitter draught, and cool. tea to wash it down, hot tea, to burn it down, and away, into the black gut despair. sink your fists into this dirt. in the house, white light covers everything. it is 201 years old. moths cling to the underside of the deck roof. the doors hang oddly on their hinges and all the furniture takes jibs. these floors undulate. fourteen steps to the attic. assorted radio equipment left on for weeks: no signal, no stranger. a stink bug works his way up the clothes my aunt has left draped over a chair. she married my mother's brother over a decade ago, after the divorce with his first wife, incidentally born on the same day as my brother. the bug moves slowly. his antennae sweep the air and his feet move with the mechanical grace reserved for insects and automobiles. he crosses her sweater, sea foam green. elm leaves clatter against each other outside and the wind blows the doors open and shut around the house. the porch columns map the sun. i sit in the shade of one of them, reading, burning my retinas on the page, it blazes a mute white fury. a stink bug flies into my leg and walks my calf, then flies on. another flies into the hair behind my ear. i remove it impatiently, as though there is a deadline for anything here. here, where i never step off the property into the delaware that is not mine, here where i am made a prisoner in my own home because i will not buy, i cannot buy, i will choke to death before i buy this world. take the train to philadelphia, my father says, go to the library. you like the philosophy society, go there, chief. benjamin franklin founded the philosophy society. he founded the free library as well, for that matter. beloved by the french, a corpulent womanizer, a genius. the sticky notes on which i remind myself of nothing are covered in crossed out words and drawings moths. they are stuck to the wall in my room, the low attic ceiling, the sides of my compter, the windowpanes. an army of loosely knit line insects. on the table, an array of mostly finished crossword puzzles. the times, the local paper. on the porch: books, a pencil, a palette bought in germany by my father. the grimy water of an aborted painting. the stink bugs crawl across the screen and threshold. they creep in on my psyche. they step gingerly over my limbs. they do not even seem to be paying attention. over the trees rises the sound of a neighbor practicing the drums. they lift and whisper. the cold is coming. go west.