Collected Poems by C. K. Williams Page A

down and be over.
    And money stinks: the little threads that go through it like veins through an eye,
    each stinks — if you hold it onto your lip it goes bad, it stinks like a vein going bad.
    And Christ stank: he knew how the slaves would be stacked into the holds and he took it —
    the stink of the vomit and shit and of somebody just rolling over and plunging in with his miserable seed.
    And the seed stinks. And the fish carrying it upstream and the bird eating the fish
    and you the bird’s egg, the dribbles of yolk, the cycle: the whole thing stinks.
    The intellect stinks and the moral faculty, like things burning, like the cave under justice,
    and the good quiet men, like oceans of tears squeezed into one handful, they stink,
    and the whole consciousness, like something plugged up, stinks, like something cut off.
    Life stinks and death stinks and god and your hand touching your face
    and every breath, daring to turn, daring to come back from the stop: the turn stinks
    and the last breath, the real one, the one where everyone troops into your bed
    and piles on — oh, that one stinks best! It stays on your mouth
    and who you kiss now knows life and knows death, knows how it would be to fume in a nostril
    and the thousand desires that stink like the stars and the voice heard through the stars
    and each time — milk sour, egg sour, sperm sour — each time — dirt, friend, father —
    each time — mother, tree, breath — each time — breath and breath and breath —
    each time the same stink, the amazement, the wonder to do this and it flares,
    this, and it stinks, this: it stinks and it stinks and it stinks and it stinks.

Blades
    When I was about eight, I once stabbed somebody, another kid, a little girl.
    I’d been hanging around in front of the supermarket near our house
    and when she walked by, I let her have it, right in the gap between her shirt and her shorts
    with a piece of broken-off car antenna I used to carry around in my pocket.
    It happened so fast I still don’t know how I did it: I was as shocked as she was
    except she squealed and started yelling as though I’d plunged a knife in her
    and everybody in the neighborhood gathered around us, then they called the cops,
    then the girl’s mother came running out of the store saying, “What happened? What happened?”
    and the girl screamed, “He stabbed me!” and I screamed back, “I did not!” and she you did too
    and me I didn’t and we were both crying hysterically by that time.
    Somebody pulled her shirt up and it was just a scratch but we went on and on
    and the mother, standing between us, seemed to be absolutely terrified.
    I still remember how she watched first one of us and then the other with a look of complete horror —
    You did too! I did not! — as though we were both strangers, as though it was some natural disaster
    she was beholding that was beyond any mode of comprehension so all she could do
    was stare speechlessly at us, and then another expression came over her face,
    one that I’d never seen before, that made me think she was going to cry herself
    and sweep both of us, the girl and me, into her arms to hold us against her.
    The police came just then, though, quieted everyone down, put the girl and the mother
    into a squad-car to take to the hospital and me in another to take to jail
    except they really only took me around the corner and let me go because the mother and daughter were black
    and in those days you had to do something pretty terrible to get into trouble that way.
    I don’t understand how we twist these things or how we get them straight again
    but I relived that day I don’t know how many times before I realized I had it all wrong.
    The boy wasn’t me at all, he was another kid: I was just there.
    And it wasn’t the girl who was black, but him. The mother was real, though.
    I really had thought she was going to embrace them both
    and I had dreams about her for years afterwards: that I’d be being born