Sunday, October 11, 2009

Timothy Yu

DRIVE


Here we are
“east” of something

see orange
slow down
save lives

expression
of grief and rage

ha ha girlfriend
in the show

instructions
How can I write
anything

devoid of contempt
this
dissatisfaction

A smell of cars gone to ground
A platform elevated by human legs

You might truck in oil for sweetness
It’s a job—land for sale—here

I want to know what has happened to my vision
of a devastated bulb protected
by a cage of shadow

an oat stuck in my teeth

You have exactly 13 minutes to circle
the drain of a different culture
doors open on the left and right

awareness week

your dad’s house in Milwaukee
your step sister’s down south
no bids

I could just eat like crazy
a red mass pierced by cutlery
in the 24-hour hotel room
of my heart
                        and then I
am back in school like a half-hour special
riding a Vespa through the empty halls
of California

there is a what I cannot tell you
this warmed-up gazpacho of many doors closing

oh and then Nick said on email that he had a big car
an open 40 behind the angled screen

Indianapolis
Bloomington
I still want to drive
I know it’s wrong
I have a little car


Timothy Yu is the author of the chapbook Journey to the West (Barrow Street) and the critical book Race and the Avant-Garde: Experimental and Asian American Poetry since 1965 (Stanford University Press). His poems and prose have appeared in SHAMPOO, Rabbit Light Movies, Boog City, and Chicago Review. He teaches at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.