James Evans, Kerry

English

The Open Repository @Binghamton (The ORB)

Harpur Palate: a Literary Journal Volume 9 Issue 1 Article 11 June 2009 A Treatise on Violence Kerry James Evans Follow this and additional works at: https://orb.binghamton.edu/harpurpalate Recommended Citation James Evans, Kerry (2009) "A Treatise on Violence," Harpur Palate: a Literary Journal: Vol. 9: Iss. 1, Article 11. Available at: https://orb.binghamton.edu/harpurpalate/vol9/iss1/11 This Poetry is brought to you for free and open access by The Open Repository @ Binghamton (The ORB). It has been accepted for inclusion in Harpur Palate: a Literary Journal by an authorized editor of The Open Repository @ Binghamton (The ORB). For more information, please contact ORB@binghamton.edu. A TREATISE ON VIOLENCE Kerry Jame Evan Mad cow, the nur e said, ravaged Europe from 1980 to 1992. For cen month of 1988, I lived in England with my family. I cannot give plasma. Ac five years old, I ace cannibalized beef My brain might be eating itself I cannot give plasma at the plasma center where, in a raffie drawing of people who have donated twice chis month, one per on will win a plasma television worch 450 dollar . I asked the nur e how the British owning the plasma center had anything co do with my brain eating itself You can never give plasma or blood. And when will my body become meat for my mind? Tangoed in the living room beneath the ceiling fan with my wife and six beers and polka music and two helping of dinner-walked outside, looked off che deck at che sun casting shadows of a cree on a garage door, pack of children howling at a playground-Saturday a football day, helmet co helmet, an upset; olorado beat Oklahoma, Auburn beat Florida. 66 1James Evans: A Treatise on ViolencePublished by The Open Repository @ Binghamton (The ORB), 2009KERRY JAMES EVANS This, the day men watch bodies that were their own. But I have this dance waiting after this cigarette; I have a shadow and voicemail from my father: he counts gravestones at Gettysburg. We were stationed in England-my family. The playground was inscalled at the end of the cul-de-sac of our neighborhood three weeks before we moved to the Azores, the next stop on my father 's route to satellite command headquarters-Pentagon, Washington, D.C., contractor , revolving door. But I am talking about a playground and skinned knee , riding my BMX into a European-looking van-I was Aat-no ed and weak, like my younger brother, the high chool football-stud-graduate working part-time toward an electrician's degree. There are wir in the machine -Neutral is white, but white, he say , is not always neutral. I'd like to give a retirement plan to each member of my family, tell them to live their lives, inve t in nothing-the poor do not belong. 67 2Harpur Palate: a Literary Journal, Vol. 9, Iss. 1 [2009], Art. 11https://orb.binghamton.edu/harpurpalate/vol9/iss1/11HARPUR PALATE I am poor. I play golf on Mondays with used club , drive a used car to a public cour e and hit a used ball to a hole after striking the ground with che club head more times than my father choke-slammed me co the wall, more rimes than my father choke-slammed my brother to the wall. o promotion and I trike at an already scarred and filthy ball. My father is honest. What apology does a father owe his son? I hare golf, bur che walk is nice-bull-shitting with the guys about nothing, football glory extended play-by-play-we drop our of the pond without counting che stroke. I am not angry at my father; I am not angry at my brother. The crazies in the plasma center are nor angry at their condition, their fucked eyes swirling in a room of free coffee, peanut burrer crackers, a movie about football-volume turned low enough to sack the waiting room, the nurse calling loudly the names of high school dropouts, marriages chat began at eighteen at a courthouse with two witnesses-68 3James Evans: A Treatise on ViolencePublished by The Open Repository @ Binghamton (The ORB), 2009KERRY JAMES EVANS I do not belong here. Tube-drawn from a long needle, my wife's arm drain , her plasma the muddy yellow of urine. he collects her twenty dollars. If I am mad, where, bur in the shadow of a tree char has lo c the leaves of ics crown and buried roots in winter, a tree cros ing a power line and shucking it bark, chis sycamore standing in my yard? And now, I will dance the mad dance with my wife, bow before her curtsy, archaic and chauvini tic-what she appreciates when she cake my hand, asks me co lead. I cannot be angry at my wife, and yet I toss her across the room, our limb hadows breaking from the walls, the bas picking up hard, and her hair: red, opening like fi c. A fi c covered with blood. 69 4Harpur Palate: a Literary Journal, Vol. 9, Iss. 1 [2009], Art. 11https://orb.binghamton.edu/harpurpalate/vol9/iss1/11

A Treatise on Violence

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A Treatise on Violence

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