Three Poems

by

Joe Mills

Love Me Do

Each morning as I take my son to day-care,
before we even reach the car, he insists,
“Beatles, Daddy, Beatles!” But I can’t
slide in just any fab four cd. The work after
Rubber Soul evokes cries of “Don’t like it!"
and foot stamps against the seat which is
unfortunate because his whistle and drum,
his yells of “Let’s go!” and “Red light!”
fit with “Yellow Submarine”and most
of Sgt Pepper and Magical Mystery Tour.
He prefers the early cuts, especially those
from Meet the Beatles. After hearing
these hundreds of times, I feel I’m finally
listening. Each week I notice something
different: how Ringo is working his ass off
on “She Loves You,”Lennon’s rough voice
on “Twist and Shout,”the way those wooos
in “I Want to Hold Your Hand”which some
seem to consider the last cry of innocence
before the beards and velvet coats, are really
the pressure whistles of boilers. Each song
is a celebration at finding a form to hold
their energy. No wonder my son likes them;
he knows about primal emotions, how hard
they are to master, the way exuberance
melds with impatience, and the rough joy
of banging noise into shapes with people
you love, almost in control and almost out.

* * *

A Midnight Call About The End of the World

She calls to ask if it was the end of the world
what would I do. I know she wants to hear
something like “Run to you,”“Crank up
REM and dance,”or “Sing while drinking
champagne,”but the streets would be packed,
Michael Stipe makes me too self-conscious
about my body, and I can never remember
lyrics. Champagne, however, might be okay
since I actually enjoyed a New Year’s Eve
once, standing on a friend’s roof, swigging
Moet and Chandon from a bottle and yelling
at people below who were yelling up at us.
That seems as good a way as any to face
the end, and if it’s going to involve some sort
of visuals I could set up the lawn furniture
I bought years ago at Goodwill which, I think,
is in the basement somewhere, although
the bulb’s burnt-out down there, so I’d need
a flashlight. Trying to imagine the sequence,
I must mumble something because she asks,
“What?”and I explain, “I’d have to find
a flashlight to go into the basement.”At this,
she gives a small, mournful, “Oh,”then says
nothing else, and, after a moment, I realize
she’s hung up, and I’m standing in a dark room
holding a blinking cell phone, wondering
if I should call back, go to bed, or have a drink
on the porch, and then I recognize this may be
exactly what the end of the world will be like.

* * *

Beacon

The other campsites all have large fires,
ones you can see burning from far away.
Ours is modest, a few logs, a small flame.
Maybe it’s because of the Westerns I read
as a kid that warned a big fire draws attention,
dulls the senses, will get you killed, or maybe
it’s guilt at having any fire when we don’t
need its warmth or light. We’re not using it
to cook, but even though my children have
never been camping, they know the ritual
elements we must have: tent, sleeping bags,
flashlights, fire. A drunk guy from the site
that’s been playing classic rock since lunch
stumbles up, stares, then says, “Hey. Hey!"
I stand, move closer to the children, grip
a piece of kindling. “If you used your air
mattress pump on that, you’d get it going.
It would light it up like a goddamn torch.”
I thank him for the tip. As he crashes away,
it occurs to me the other sites have been
pitying us, the sad family hunched around
the meager flames. I feel a flash of anger,
a desire to show I can provide, to prove
I can get things burning. It’s a sentiment
unworthy of a Mountain Man, Jim Bridger,
Kit Carson, Hugh Glass, Jedediah Smith,
but I don’t remember them having kids.
I throw the stick into the circle, and ask,
“Does anyone here want a bigger fire?”
“Yeah!”the children shout, a response
I suspect they would give if I asked
whether we should set the woods ablaze.
Then my wife says in the voice she uses
when suggesting maybe I shouldn’t wear
a particular shirt again, “It might be nice
to have a fire that’s more like a fire.”
Stoked, I go to the tent and find the pump.
The drunk is right; it works like a torch,
a goddamn torch, and soon I have flames
that delight my family, burn brightly
in the night, serve as a beacon to illuminate
who I am and what I am willing to do.

* * *

A faculty member at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, Joe Mills has published two volumes of poetry, Somewhere During the Spin Cycle and Angels, Thieves, and Winemakers. His third collection, “Love and Other Collisions,” will be released in March 2010.