"Responsorials" by Joe Weil and Emily Vogel (Pt.3)
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From The Book of Almosts
The petals were falling all aroundthe heads of emperors and churls.This is the closest we ever gotto an end to class warfare.
It was on the cuspof spring and summer.The miracle of sports and fleshalmost canceled out distinctions.
Boats came and went under stars.Some men were expertat the poetry of moonlight;others knew how to catch fish.
What does a certain moon phasewith a northwesterly three dayblow mean in the grand schemeof mating flounder?
Good question. The poets were liarsseeking truth. The fishermendidn’t have time to sort it out—the truth from the false Albacore.
They were taking the dog fishand sea robins and bergallsfrom the nets and tossing themback into the sea.
When night came, he saw herhair black as lava sand,the petals falling white allaround her, and he reached
for her hand in the darktouched scales— She was amermaid? No, but a maid,and that was bad enough.
The Difficulty of Reconciliations
It was the sort of day when everything seemed vaguely French. Even the stench of the sea in the air seemed French. The people had been trying to make sense of the contrast between one thing and another. The ease of moonlight on a cool lake, for instance, gondolas and intimate picnics, dead women who still appeared with lusturous and beautiful hair, all of this on one hand, and then the brutal city, the crass sunlight, an angry neighbor pounding on the floor on the other. These contrasts seemed to occupy the mind throughout attempts at prayer. The world was indeed a difficult thing to reconcile. It might have some hope for reconciliation, but only in France. There was plenty of wine to be had. It flowed in rivers and like tears from the wasted eyes of jilted lovers. It was not rare to find yourself lying in the hot arms of a lover while the wind gently washed in through a great window at 3 am. There were lovers on the fourth floor, and there were the arousals of distant music. It was, obviously, a good time for war, and there was a scarcity of fish. It was not a good summer for clamming. There was not a clam to be had in the city, but the skirts of elegant women still looked good by the light of the moon, and the men were strong and honest, and crude as poets. Everybody spread words like money, while industries collapsed, just like summer thunderstorms, the children idling out in the rain, laughing and laughing and chanting obscure verses.
Emily and Joe live in upstate New York with their children Clare and Gabriel. Responsorials are excerpted from their collaborative book of poetry West of Home (Blast Press, 2013).