CLOSED
Artist
The Alternative Press
Artist
Jaimy Gordon
Daten.d.
MediumLetterpress on paper
DimensionsPaper Size: 11 × 8 in. (27.9 × 20.3 cm)
ClassificationsPrint
Credit LineGift of Gary Eleinko, 2023
Object numberUAC7442.11
DescriptionLetterpress printed poem by Jaimy Gordon, titled "CLOSED"CLOSED
This day, like many another, is gravely ill-omened for working.
Even to go downstairs is begging for trouble.
On this day love resembles work:
To know his whole heart is a siege of detail
like shutting your head in a phonebook.
Even to come would be too much work.
Your body, serene as a pine board if left to itelf,
is forty hours of bad road from that funhouse.
Therefore, an excellent day to go back to bed
with a box of rumballs and a novel,
an evil day to call up the boyfriend, who will borrow your car
to go see some woman "on business."
It's disgusting how your Chevy knows the way to his door
like a nag on a milk truck. You meant to give him
your breasts to kiss, and end up vacuuming his cushions.
You ought to give him down the road; instead you
bake him Alaska and sew up the seat of his pants.
Forty miles down the pike, love carries insurance
and ten times it's weight on its back.
You wish you'd married someone handy.
Whenever he looks at a woman you think
I have no future with this company.
Really you're getting as vulgar as an office stiff.
If you must, on this day, perform the office of love, then
strictly in the shabbos position:
Creep on the basherter when his blinds are pulled
and a great CLOSED sign blanks out his moss-colored eyes
(which violently incites to Venus)
Make free
Do not mention it
Eat nothing while you're down there
Accept no tender
Leave on your way out.
Published by The Alternative Press, Issue Number 5.
