Cummings Improv (3rd draft) Hamster and Wood

Hamster and Wood

Sagging flowers blob on trees and spew

gold film on my windows.
Yes, it's that time again.

Time to pick my way through packed
boxes and dusty sacks from winter,
shuffling on hands and knees

across the creaking attic beams
where I find our old hamster cage.

How many times did we spend

our honeymoon years pressed cheek to cheek

 to peer through its metallic slats?
Sworn to our devotion for our false child

we spent hours watching our hamster 

throw his head into the wood,
sweeping musty scraps of pine upward,

pricking claws through cedar slices,

searching for, what I joked, was the Great Beyond.
 

Our voyeur-days spent cuddling and scoping
the bulging bead of his hamster eye, gemming
like the spotlight of a boutique window, seeing

dirt, seeing dust and opportunity.

He’d find jagged scraps of hope down there.

A plastic glare against his eye.

So that right before the dive

his eyelid curtained down to wrap
whatever present sight had given him.

Reminds me of sex.

How, so much like a hamster, you
dipped yourself until your skin
burned and chafed like a swollen arial.
Holed up--seeking the familiar,
hoping to hide angsty bruises.
(How daddy left you. How mommy
hates you.) How I am the closest

you'll ever be to pure abandonment--
of sense, of fear, of self.

Acknowledge "union"
for what it really is.
Giving up you in me
and piecing together like
hamster and wood.

Slipping with rodent quickness, slamming
inside fragmented trees,
hoping arms will reach out and stroke
the shudder of your hamster soul to calming.

Sometimes, tired of watching our pet burrow
I used to reach into the cage, scoop him out,

and hold him. 

Press the anxious wiggle of his nose to mine,

until with silent relief,

I'd watch my presence limp him against my thumb.

For me, his ceaseless digging
meant restlessness. Unease.

I wish I realized then that stopping him
(stopping you) meant finally having to face 

the need to find

some grass beyond these wood chips.

Cummings Improv Part II (Edit)

Eff, this is long. Still haven't titled it yet.

Outside, pink blobs sagging on trees

spew yellow film on my windows.
It's that time again.

Time to pick my way through packed
boxes and dusty sacks from winter;
shuffling on hands and knees
through the creaking attic's back,
I find our old hamster cage.

How many times did we press cheeks
together to peer through its metallic slats,
watching the hamster throw his head
into the wood chips?
Sweeping musty scraps of pine upward,
pricking his clawed fingers into cedar slices.
Voyeurs, we'd cuddle close and scope
the bulging bead of his eye gem
like the spotlight of a boutique window.

We’d sit and marvel at his plump insides

until his lids curtained down to wrap
itself off in preparation of the dive.

Reminds me of sex.

How, so much like a hamster, you
dipped yourself until your skin
burned and chafed like a swollen arial.
You holed up.
Perhaps seeking the familiar.
Perhaps hoping to hide angsty bruises
(How daddy left you. How mommy
hates you. How I am
the closest you'll ever be
to pure abandonment--
of sense, of fear, of self).

Whether that means leaving the man
you never wanted to know behind
or to acknowledge the word "union"
for what it really is. Becoming one.
Giving up you for me
and piecing together like
key and lock. Woman and man.
Hamster and wood.

Slipping with rodent quickness, slamming
inside the fragmented trees,
hoping arms will reach out and stroke
the shudder of your hamster soul to calming.

Sometimes, tired of watching our pet
burrow into the wood I reached
into the cage, scooped him out,
held him in my hands and pressed
the anxious wiggle of his nose to mine.
With silent relief I'd watch
my gentle presence drain him, limp him
against my thumb. For me, his ceaseless
digging meant restlessness. Unease.

But for you, stopping the hamster
(stopping you), meant having to face
the unmoving evidence
of your shame. 

I had a brush-in with e.e. cummings "she being brand" in my Grammar class last week. I became obsessed to try something new following the notion of trying to sexualize something unsexual? Whatever. First attempt. Very rough draft.

These days my favorite hamster drifts awall,
though his bark-laden cage is still here.
So many times we watched that hamster throw
his head into the wood, splaying
musty scraps of pine and pricking prodding
fingers down into the cedar slices. Voyeur-like
we noticed how the bulging bead of his eye
would close around itself before diving                                  in and out
in and out of the dangerous.

Why did he dip himself in raw temptation?
His skin burned and chafed like a ripe and swollen
aril, and I, scraped and sighed finality.
Still he weasled on. Perhaps to hole up
in the familiar. Perhaps to hide the seeping bruises
of his adolescent recall. Did daddy damage him
the day he disappeared? Or was it when his mom
threw him out? Let him sleep curbside.
Maybe all he was really hiding
was the truth that I'm the closest he'll ever be
to pure abandonment.
Of sense. Of fear. Of self.

Whatever it was, with rodent quickness, his s l i p p i n g
body burrowed into fragmented trees,
waiting for the branches to reach out and wrap
its tired arms around the shudder of his (s__)*,
so that the moment when his little hamster life went limp,
drained from the ability to rise, I could not
disguise my silent relief, but you,
my darling, could not break eyes
from the absent, unmoving evidence
of your shame. 

*I hate to put the word "soul" here. I am striving for some particular word, I just don't know what it is yet.