Bernadette Mayer

 

alone at mischance
I wish I were up on the ceiling
the guidebook’s merry Avenue A
dances with the city’s in emotion

a raw stocking of old ground round
who? what? is the refried beans
Spanish or what the stolen mud cart
across the descriptive clouds on

how’d they erect that bulky steeple
anyway we’ll win our victory over
the fucking landlord no refrigerator
she lived in your apartment 30 years

Key Food’s selling stolen fucked-up meat
the tenants in this building better organize
what’s gefilte fish? it’s Jewish?
clouds on knives by crazy ladies

no hand or leg or husband she put her bra
and a box of blueberries in the hallways
on a paper towel with the congressional medal
the purple heart and her t.v. set

you know the sugar for $1.49 is not bad
she waved the biggest knife at herself
dead is the avenue at such expense
the man the corporation lives uptown

he writes a short corporation by heart
part of my washing machine gets mentioned
he pours a long vodka and grapefruit juice
using a young woman of the city as a straw

the roof is leaking and they want you to buy
not only your food but your apartment or else
you’re being thrown out millions of dollars
envision the grouchy landlord’s ugly asshole

let’s plan to make the food so expensive
that the people who live in the neighborhood
will have to move to Sylvania Solid State
to find something cheap enough to eat

 

Bernadette Mayer is the author of over 27 collections, including most recently Works and Days (2016), Eating The Colors Of A Lineup Of Words: The Early Books of Bernadette Mayer (2015) and The Helens of Troy (2013), as well as countless chapbooks and artist-books. From 1980-1984, she served as the director of the St. Mark’s Poetry Project, and has also edited and founded 0 to 9 journal and United Artists books and magazines.