Spooky Boyfriend #5
Things To Do With A DVD Of Point Break
Put it in a stack of other DVDs and forget which one it is.
Say it’s your favorite movie.
Say you saw it once but you fell asleep.
Say you think it’s pretty good but not as good as Repo Man.
Lend it to the guy you’re sleeping with.
Lend it to Brendan Oaks.
Lend it to your roommate’s sister
who’s visiting from DC
and says she’s never seen it
but she loves Keanu Reaves.
Put it in a bowl of water and teach it how to surf.
Put it in a bowl of sour cream and teach it how to surf in sour cream.
Wrap it in a tortilla and you’ve got a Point Break burrito.
Throw it like a little Frisbee.
See how high you can throw it.
See if you can throw it higher than your other DVDs.
Put on a bathing suit and sit on a towel on the floor and watch it.
Watch it with the sound off and pretend it’s a foreign film.
Watch it with the sound off and pretend you’re deaf.
Watch it and try to estimate how many fish there are in each shot.
Watch it alone.
Watch it and rewind it when you get to the part
Where the girl changes out of her wetsuit in the car
and watch that part again
in slow motion.
Watch it and identify with Keanu Reeves.
Watch it and identify with Patrick Swayze.
Watch it and identify with the good guys and the bad guys:
the cops eating sandwiches and the gang of angry surfers
robbing banks in presidential masks.
Watch it and think about the changing tides, about the lie
Keanu Reeves told
that turned out not to be a lie.
Watch the part with the girl
changing out of the wetsuit in the car
one more time in slow motion.
Watch it and identify
with everything.
Watch it and identify with the Pacific Ocean.
Things To Do With A Pomegranate
Try to put it back on a tree in a convincing way.
Paint it orange and pass it off as a gourd.
Paint it white and pass it off as something else.
Put all the seeds in your mouth without breaking them.
Change into your favorite blouse
and cut it open and swear
to anyone who asks that you actually
like the shirt better stained.
Why? Because it reminds you of the pomegranate,
and tell them not to ask any more questions.
Okay. Hold it and estimate how much it weighs.
Hold it until it's the same temperature as you.
Hold it and wish you had another
so you could hold pomegranates in both hands.
Hold it and wish you had a better pomegranate.
Listen closely and see if you can guess
what it's thinking. Stop laughing.
Listen: It's thinking of thirst.
It’s thinking of wet creased leaves
on the ground, a damp smell, the sky.
It's thinking it would like to be a better pomegranate.
It’s thinking of three things. It’s thinking of margarine.
It’s thinking of kings. It's thinking
it would rather be back on the tree.
Amy Berkowitz is from New York City and currently lives in Michigan. She has poems in Coconut, Shampoo Poetry, and Zygote in My Coffee, and poems forthcoming in Foursquare, Line Line Line Line, and RealPoetik. She is a founding member of the Washtenaw County Women's Poetry Collective and Casserole Society, whose first collection of collaborative poems is called The Feeling Is Mutual.
Something spooky:
The stuff my cat types. ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii;;;;;;;;9000000000
