Suzanne Wise

Suzanne Wise was born in 1965 in Rutland, Vermont, and grew up in Killington, Vermont. She received her BA from Middlebury College in Vermont and her MFA from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Her poems have appeared in Boston Review, Denver Quarterly, Fence, Tikkun, Volt, and elsewhere, and have been recognized with two fellowships from The Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown and a Barbara Deming Memorial Fund Award, among other honors. Her first book is The Kingdom of the Subjunctive (Alice James, 2000). Wise has served as the literary events planner for Small Press Distribution in Berkeley and Poets House in New York City, and has taught creative writing at Middlebury College and in the Publication, Performance, and Media Program at Pratt Institute. She lives in Brooklyn.

Testimony

Because that heckler was a joke,

(she was no lady), we forced her to behave

like a sheep, beat her, forced her

to enter a hole in front of her house,

ordered her to bend her head,

riddled her. We stitched her good.

She could not move or cry.

Later we paid for what we did.

Her father got 8,000—she had not yet bled.

After the first real customer, the price dropped

to 4,000, then 200 for an hour.

After months of effort, our gynecologists

examined her, proclaimed her barren.

The current ransom is 300 or five jugs of oil.

It is important to be accurate, to measure results,

to learn from mistakes, to continue to do what is right,

correct what is wrong and improve what is imperfect

so as to avoid great losses.

Especially these days, as we pass through

the most unfortunate events, overwhelming our country

and friends as if one had happened upon them

by chance, on some secret errand.

To write down our passionate thoughts

at all is already, in some measure, to command

and have our way with them.

Our inspiration comes out of that dreamy

atmosphere in which men have things

as they will. We regret we were forced

to omit so much.

Confession

I had my faults.

I had my so-called desires.

I remained open to temptation.

I argued with my colleagues.

I did not reach 100 percent

in my assignments. But I was no pry

pole, I was subsidiary. I was aspiring

to cog. I wanted to be a gullible

sheep or a rowdy-dowdy shepherdess

or a shamefaced sheepdog.

When I learned what I had to be,

I sat down on my luggage set

and wept. Then I unpacked. I decorated.

I raised the roof. I flew my kite.

I removed all the skulls and thieves.

I told my wise leaders where to sponge.

I was less than resistant. I was more than bold.

I was beyond naked. I was technicolor.

I was a brilliant butcher, an innovative

streetwalker, a saucy sales manager.

I knew a good stogy, a fine lace teddy.

I lived for love. I erred accordingly.

I assumed the world condoned my stunts.

It’s clearer today. I was misunderstood;

I was in the know everyone else wanted

out of. Today there are no traces

of erasures, and no qualms, no real

wrongs. I made judgments for the best

and by the standards of the time.

Now that it’s over I must beg

for attention. I have been robbed

of the limelight that comes with

responsibility. I can only imagine

how hard it must be for you

to believe me, I mean, to hold

blame. I mean, to be you.

50 Years in the Career of an Aspiring Thug

1. Burned Christ to a crisp.  2. On the Betty Crocker burner.  3. Tied a body to the railroad tracks. It wore the clothes of a girl.  4. Later found naked and weeping in the fields.  5. It was a body of straw.  6. It wore a note that said: I am God.  7. Drove Father’s golf cart into the pond. My final hole in one, said the note stuffed in the ninth hole.  8. Stole prize roses from Mother’s garden. Wore them on the head, as a wreath, in secret, admiring the Romanesque profile in the bathroom mirror.  9. In the diary: I will conquer.  10. Dreamed of making the rank of Eagle Scout.  11. Stole Brother’s BB gun.  12. Shot the lights out all over town.  13. Disappeared.  14. Didn’t leave a note.  15. Got a job in the city working for the glass company.  16. Checking panes for cracks.  17. Etched curses into every self reflected.  18. Got a job working for the car company, answering the phone.  19. I’m Henry Ford, on this earth to eat your soul.  20. Got a job working for the baby food company, counting cans of mashed beets, broccoli, meats.  21. Kept that job.  22. Wrote neat columns.  23. Of numbers.  24. Added with precision.  25. Punched.  26. The.  27. Clock.  28. The.  29. Clock.  30. The.  31. Clock.  32. One more spot in the spotty night, scribbled on the forehead in the mirror.  33. Sad brow of the girl on the job in the boss’s bed.  34. I am beads on an abacus.  35. Clicked.  36. From left to right.  37. Wore a crown.  38. Of sweat.  39. Bars of the headboard trapped in small hands.  40. Woke as the only one inside the body of mulch, the body of palm smears, the rewired body of blue veins and split hairs, the body of loose and multiplying terms.  41. Breathed zeros in the damp.  42. Monitored ceiling stain’s spread.  43. Pondered the unwritten book of the distant.  44. Time card.  45. That little priest hungry for sins.  46. Wielded the stolen grease pencil.  47.  Blackened the stolen roll of fish wrapping paper, a record.  48. Of hiding places.  49. Because street lights got replaced.  50. Because fields grew parking lots.

Advice

It is time for you to stop trying to be so smart.

It is time to abandon those plans for aqueducts,

canals, sewers. It is time to burn your boats,

to jump into the next free dingy, to run

yourself aground on foreign land. It is time

to smash every inhibition on the shores of progress,

then loll in the rubble, flinging shards of ship

at gulls as you build empires in the sand

beneath a beach umbrella. Basically,

it is time to stop trying so hard.

Instead, lie back and listen to the waves

smashing shells to bits. Think of it

as a chorus goading you to greater heights

or as wild beasts begging to be caged.

Basically, it is time for you to be heard.

Remember to enunciate. Pay attention

to vowels, the way they seduce

regardless of the words they inhabit.

Recognize how the names of things

slide off their thingness like fried fish

from an oily plate. Smell the fishy fragrance,

injected into the steamy air by the mere

mention of dinner. Fondle your imaginary

skillet. How hard and dark and hot it is.

This is just the beginning of your power.

You will find new oceans, you will reside

in a do-or-die mode. This is not necessarily

a problem and thus the ironic, absurdist tone

you have become accustomed to

must also be abandoned. You must be

patient. You must quietly await

your one authentic voice. As Pound said,

quoting Beardsley: Beauty is slow.

For me, on the other hand, it is over,

politically, and as a human being.

I will never talk about myself again.

I will be taciturn, modest.

You will continue to look at me

from the outside and not know

what I have suffered. Still,

it may be difficult to forget

that I have been your leader.

It is this indebtedness

that will define you

as my greatest joy.