Patrick Moore
a modest break
from the shaking grip and worried pulse
We Still Bring the Weather on Vacation is a book of poems about the myths we inherit and the ones we make out of love, family, sex, grief, guilt, liminal spaces, and the strange theater of becoming. Wry, bruising, and deeply alive, this collection lingers in the place where tenderness and damage learn to speak in the same breath. These poems understand that no matter where we go, we carry our histories, our hungers, and our weathers with us.
Running, Mouth Open
Again the manacle feet
The love of passing time
Already there the place with the view
Of animal comfort which gets in one’s eye
Fetching and getting day pleasure
Guarding it like a drain
Pelican beak working the birdbath
Bubbling the sherry aquamarine
Hitting head serving plate
Do not wither the padded chair
Or pull away your pruning feet
The pennant should not be altered
In this weather
March and call be far from here
Circulatory system intact and staying
Shadow under device
Forgotten pell mell and moving
Breath held in its situated husk
Marriage Season
Mae is firmly twisting her knuckles
into the back of my mouth into
audible whispers
planning our days around loved
ones I don’t see enough of
asking if I have ever kissed any of
my friends pre hogtie before they
kept falling
she will just have to watch them spend exuberant
amounts of money to get clapped at while
she guiltily watches from the back tipping
the help as much as she can until
she can’t
Decency
One of those early afternoons in
scattering and complimenting my only
shirt breaking from the sheets
squeak giggle
dancing around me in costuming my
high fly cotton baseball styled tee laughing about
the one I stole from my brother
fitting her
holding her shape too short for
a dress
pool balcony lawn wearing
pixie guided rum mouth after you
in boxers and tattoos shining on day
and play patrons on the way
to the ice machine
mojitos and not a word
about base lengths
later that
night before I lost patience ruining
my line: slowly
no slower
Origin
We can watch the superheroes tonight
there is an artisanal chicken in the kitchen
we can be good and drunk if we want to
all through the holiday
we can watch the superheroes on the television
next to the family pictures and the portrait painted by my uncle
he died three years ago because he wasn’t very super
all the punches we watch tonight could break a family
if they were not often caught
we wait with hushed breath
the henchmen close in
it’s only the first act
but these blows could land anywhere
Infinite Knots
You remind me we aren’t
in the business of infinite knots
no clever turn that saves us
no peak or valley standing in
to suck the poison gone
or the cure made clean
you don’t want piety tuned just right
or sense arranged in fortresses
you want something that holds
without ceremony
you want me to pour this sound of longing
out of its performance
out of the rooms where Al Jolson played on
what his hands could still manage
where craft meant staying in it
long after the trick was spent
you want what ruins the knot:
the heat I’ve been hiding under my napkin
that simmers if you let it
and bends down early
to take the heel off the bit
before the engagement photo
before we’re lined up
and told where to stand
