What knife and fork cut up the information
fed me, shaping my mind’s jaws and teeth
to bite misaligned, and reinforced in
misalignment by tools I’ve had to use?

Our ancestors tore food with incisors,
avoiding the overbite cut meat encourages,
that top-teeth smile regarded as beautiful.
Beauty’s shaped by what we learn to expect.

I sat in the chair, pinned there by lamplight
limning all flaws my open mouth availed,
the Dr’s daughter a shadowy blue smock,
beautiful face framed by straight, brown hair.

After three years they pulled the braces off.
I ran my tongue cross slick teeth—my smile
now matching that of the woman flossing
bloodless gums, in a frame, near the exit—

while the retainer came two weeks later,
credential signaling completion
and submission, a Boy Scout patch,
wedding ring or steak, rare, ready to eat.

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The and conjoins disjunctive clauses
in something less than matrimony, yes,
but no more separable than. (Take you and me.)
One famous place the and began was in
“Begin the Beguine,” beginning with
And down by the shore an orchestra’s playing
and continuing on with yet not quite ending at
And even the palms seem to be swaying.

But what do we do when the and begins with us,
we who seem to be forever conjoined,
always with, and yet perhaps all we are with is out?
Out itself would be so much better to be without,
and yet there’s that paradox dogging us
like the next clacketting, decorated cart
in fate’s parade–is it dragged by an ox?
And there we are, swearing to love forever,
And promising never, never to part.

Let us conclude not as we began,
but with the end, especially but not only because
we have seen fit to bring in “the Beguine”
at a point earlier in this text, but because
we now know that each and suggests a certain end,
as does each Beguine. But neither let us let
the and end with us: And now when I hear
people curse the chance that was wasted,
I wonder if we’re prone to fuss.

Aaron Belz has published two collections of poems, The Bird Hoverer (BlazeVOX, 2007) and Lovely, Raspberry (Persea, 2010). (A third, as yet untitled, is forthcoming from Persea.)

*Photo courtesy of B Tal.

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edition of Voltaire’s
Candide complete
with your banal
marginalia reminds
me of a joke I once
heard: what happens
when you cross a

or was it a pheasant
with a porcupine
in any case they
both began with P
and someday, with luck,
we’ll have enough
money socked away
to roll this mobile
home out of the
Everglades or

what happens when you
cross singer-songwriter
with huggy bear
and the punch line
may be obvious enough
but it isn’t Branson,
Mo, think closer
to your own

the giant house where
your mom has giant
paintings of you in giant
gilded because that’s
just “how she thinks”
I would have rather
taught Swift that year
but I had to go with
what was being

aren’t there, as the
beginning of a question,
or there aren’t, sort
of reversing it, there
aren’t any more,
or aren’t there, or why
aren’t there any more
of them left over
for me, and
curtain

meanwhile from this
vantage point migrating
doves look almost
Swiftian dipping their
wings toward the
old gray canal, a
satire on the very
essence of bird (or
as you once called it
bird-ness, followed by
“I’m bored now”)

so broods the bent World
with warm breast
and with ah! bright
wings W

Somerset Maugham

Aaron Belz has published two collections of poems, The Bird Hoverer (BlazeVOX, 2007) and Lovely, Raspberry (Persea, 2010). A third, as yet untitled, is forthcoming from Persea.

*Photo courtesy of Timothy Tolle.

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Where there is a Howard, there is a

Howard

How is the ard of Howard. Now, take two Howards and blend them
Into a large sugar bunny. What you will find is that you now have
One sweet sweet Howard. His name is Howard Cosell. He died
In 1995. He was seventy seven years old. He is not really named “Howard”
Now. He is named Jesus Christ, and he lives in infinity!

Howard

What is Howard?
Let us ask Howard.
Howard is everything
That isn’t Not-Howard,
He says. Good grief!
My leather penguin
Could have told me
That. Oh sorry–our
leather penguin.

Howard

Whenever I throw
A knife at the photo
Of Howard that hangs
In the dining room I
Miss badly and
Damage something
Expensive. Howard,
Howard, I’m moving
Your photo to your
Bedroom.

Howard

There isn’t any Howard, per se.
He keeps his money in purse A.

Howards End

I once went to
Howards End.
It was spooky.

Aaron Belz has published two collections of poems, The Bird Hoverer (BlazeVOX, 2007) and Lovely, Raspberry (Persea, 2010). A third, as yet untitled, is forthcoming from Persea.

*Photo courtesy of madmolecule

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