a way of getting there
by Joseph Milford

How’s your scrapheaps coming, men?  Destiny presented me
with several refill rolls of Scotch tape, said, “get to the collage
of the deluge of borderlands, southern boy.”  But, as I have demonstrated,
I have no idea what constitutes collagistry, that fine art.  However,
I do have an uncanny lexicon of fragments in the ol’ bean.  Okay, I’ll paint
wings on your ankles for you; I’ll even hold the whiteblue hot firebrand
in my bare hand while reciting the last four chapters of If I Forget Thee,
Jerusalem in order to be your friend.  It’s the most glorious scam, all
sleight of hand.  I’ll airmail myself to you, my love, in a wooden crate.
I’ll need crossword puzzles, a quilt, some sandwiches.  I’ll pop out
with a half-eaten cake and give you a bicep necklace.  I’ll break
the beer-mug on some driftwood in the stale air at the bar.  The waitress
won’t like it; she’ll probably make an announcement.  I let it all hang out
like the tail of a mare.  Tell me this:  can you say I have not had bliss?
I’ll gather the metaphysical scrapmetal.  I’ll construct the makeshift
ramshackle vehicle.  I’ll speak in tongues of angel creoles and pidgins
as I rickety-rocket ratchet through these Midwestern streets.  Your windows
will all explode into the poems they truly contain.  These words map out
just where I’ve been, the gates where passion meets chagrin.  It’s an easy rhyme.
                                A good time.

Other poems by Joseph Milford in ActionYes #2:
I let the reins go
On the edge of the initiate’s fingernail lies the secret longitude, the lost Parallel
the somnambulist
Fossilized Roadmap
my first semester
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