In the Human Zoo (The Agha Shahid Ali Prize In Poetry)

75 Pages·2011·0.43 MB·English

by  Jennifer Perrine

the agha shahid ali prize in poetry
In the Human Zoo
Jennifer Perrine
In the Human Zoo

the agha shahid ali prize in poetry
In the Human Zoo
Jennifer Perrine
The University of Utah Press
Salt Lake City
The Agha Shahid Ali Prize in Poetry
Series Editor: Katharine Coles
Advisory Editor: Paisley Rekdal
Copyright © 2011 by The University of Utah Press. All rights reserved.
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of
this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any
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the publisher.
The Defiance House Man colophon is a registered trademark
of the University of Utah Press. It is based upon a four-foot-tall,
Ancient Puebloan pictograph (late PIII) near Glen Canyon, Utah.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Perrine, Jennifer.
  In the human zoo / Jennifer Perrine.
       p. cm.
  ISBN 978-1-60781-144-2 (pbk. : alk. paper)
  ISBN 978-1-60781-987-5 (ebook)
  I. Title.
  PS3616.E7924I5 2011
  811’.6—dc22
2011011688
Contents
This Worm of Furnace
I’ve Never Swum with Dolphins 3
A Transparent Man Is Hard to Find 4
Portrait of My Mother as Mule 5
Origin Story 6
Walking Home After the Graveyard Shift 7
When, at Last, I Meet My Mother Again 8
Wings Poised Like Knives
Portrait of Myself at Fourteen, as Saint Rose of Lima 11
Senbazuru 12
Palinode: Myoclonus 13
Faint 15
This Animal Self 16
When I’m Gone, Don’t Remember Me 18
Outside Paradise, Everything Is Other 19
The Beast by Its Harness
In the Human Zoo 23
Security Guard, Robert Gober’s Untitled (1989–96) 24
On Fallibility 25
Portrait of My Daughter as Pink Flamingo 26
Many Dangers, Toils, and Snares 27
My Father’s Parable 28
For Sport 29
On Confession 30
Just Enough to Draw Blood
Looking for the Tell 33
Pentimenti 34
I Found Love in the Hall of Mirrors 35
This Page from My Pillow Book, This Page from My Bestiary 36
After He Breaks Her Arm 37
Shivaree for the Bride-to-Be 38
Apologia 39
Such Guts as Gifts
Portrait of My Lover as Zombie 43
When the Dazzle Isn’t Gradual 44
Maculate Conception 46
Love Song for the Nutria 47
Portrait of My Daughter as Dominatrix 48
Fifteen Years Later, My Mother Apologizes 49
Portrait of Myself as Precious Stone, as Accident
Waiting to Happen 50
Maggot Therapy 51
Nothing Gets Me Hotter than a Punch in the Face 52
Intersections 53
Cicatrix 54
Howl
Portrait of My Mother as Kitchen Utensil 57
Majie 58
Portrait of My Lover as Medium 59
Refuge 60
If Life Gives You Lemons, Make 61
Apology for My Recklessness 62
Mother, Self-Portrait, 2006 63
Aubade 65
Dear Lindy and Balboa, Dear Charleston and Shag, 66
Acknowledgments 67
This Worm of Furnace

I’ve Never Swum with Dolphins
But once I plunged headlong into a pool
of jellyfish, ten million pulsing medusae
ushering me under the waterline,
where I buried my face in the sheer miracle,
not swimming but begging my legs to swivel
gingerly lest I tear their nimble blueberry
bodies, spill the light lurking in their eerie
mouths. Even blessed by the undulating opals,
caressed with tentacle benedictions, the fear—
not of these creatures, their tiny poison barbs—
but of my own graceless weight interrupting
their translucent, milky work, this severe
beauty I had the luck to wear, a living garb
that kissed my skin with its silk, with its sting.
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