G Reads Her Poems

G Reads Her Poems

when mt saint helens threatened to explode
they sent in planes with photographers
for history, and when the whole top slid out
the dust chased the pilots out of the blast
with a sound like human history compressed

this is on my mind when G does slam
& right before, when she dances with the aisle
and the floor and the ceiling and the walls
and then hits the stage and wipes her
hands on her fishnets and belts
diamond toads, frogs of peridot
expels words like they were authority figures--

a poem that starts with “you”
a poem that starts
“listen” a poem that starts “what they don’t get”
and pauses to smell the washed audience
sweating carelessness, fear to hear her --

when mt saint helens erupted ash fell in eleven states,
blanketed cars and trees and
bruce springsteen’s hungry heart (first guitar, lost virginity)
and G, negative thirteen years old, took notes
on how to rebel, yell the blues