April 28: Beauty and Love, Terrance Hayes, "God is an American"

When I got home last night after teaching, I had a couple glasses of wine to celebrate the end of the semester.  The wine went well with my snack of choice--Pringles and Easy Cheese.  Now, that may sound disgusting to some of my disciples, but it was a beautiful combination.

I have another Terrance Hayes poem for you all tonight.  You know, the MacArthur Genius.  National Book Award Winner.  Saint Marty Poet of the Week.  He's just stacking up the honors.

Hayes' sonnet is about love and beauty, as most sonnets are.  This morning's post was all about my work day.  The office.  Phones.  Patients.  More phones.  Computers.  Phones again.  Tonight's post is about beauty and love.

My son is out on the playground right now, playing with a new friend.  A little girl who just moved into the neighborhood.  He's been playing with her for a couple of days now.  My son is still having trouble controlling himself since his ADHD medication stopped working for him.  His dosage has been increased, and he's got an appointment with a doctor next month.  However, by evening, he is always on the edge of grabbing a toy sledgehammer and pounding a hole in a bathroom door.  He's my beautiful boy.  My beautiful, sometimes possessed boy.

My daughter is in another room, talking to her boyfriend on her phone.  She'll continue talking to him until she goes to sleep tonight.  While she's doing her homework.  Eating Ramen noodles.  Brushing her hair.  Brushing her teeth.  She'll even take the phone with her to bed and talk with him before she drifts off to dreams.  She's my beautiful girl.  My beautiful, teenager-in-love girl.

Tonight, I will have another glass of wine with my wife while we watch the 10 o'clock news.  We will laugh at the anchor's ears, which are large and a little uneven.   We'll share some Pringles and a can of Easy Cheese.  It will be a beautiful night with the beautiful woman I love.

See.  Saint Marty promised you beauty and love in this post.

God is an American

by: Terrance Hayes

I still love words. When we make love in the morning,
your skin damp from a shower, the day calms.
Shadenfreude may be the best way to name the covering
of adulthood, the powdered sugar on a black shirt. I am

alone now on the top floor pulled by obsession, the ink
on my fingers. And sometimes it is a difficult name.
Sometimes it is like the world before America, the kin-
ship of fools and hunters, the children, the dazed dream

of mothers with no style. A word can be the boot print
in a square of fresh cement and the glaze of morning.
Your response to my kiss is I have a cavity. I am in
love with incompletion. I am clinging to your moorings.

Yes, I have a pretty good idea what beauty is. It survives
alright. It aches like an open book. It makes it difficult to live.