LETTER TO DAWN

by Lorri Jackson

shed the remnants of the day

the hard bright sun, the grilling heat

blast of a hell ladened year. It is

summer, my friend, are you surfing

as you read this? I am thinking

about you: off go

my shoes, my shirt,

panties. i’ve already smoked

some hash, and eaten a big

meal of noodles, raw cucumbers

feta cheese on the side. see, i am

trying to take care of myself.

and get this; when i can remember

i take vitamins in the morning

to ward off the demons

of yeast infections, fleas, garbage

flies, cotchrot, toto. too much

pestilence leads to thoughts

of retribution. too much

of the white stuff and i am really

starting to hear detectives at the door.

funny, when i was a kid it was

angels. so between the falls

i am really trying

to get up consistently and not feel

like shit. ‘mortality

is reality. and graveyards

a reminder.’ to quote

my own damned self

3:30 this afternoon and it’s 100 degrees

plus, and i’m walking around in a black

dress. sweat pours in rivets, riverlets

rivelets. i think of blanche

dubois and other southern fried graces

sure, i’d like a slow gin fizz, right now

no fan is gonna blow

this grit from my skin

no north wind is gonna breeze

in from the cool sea

HOW MUCH HONEY?

one thousand to lick the bottom

of my shoe sucker

the rican boyos in the neighborhood love

the tattoos, something to do with

gangs, prisons, promises

BENITO AND INGLIO, PAPO AND MUERTO

muerto the man with brown bags and

a demon dog with the face of a rat

he did it to himself, in ‘college’

as they like to call the penitentiary

with a stereo needle and an electric razor

YOU DON GOTTA LEH DEM TOUCH

              YOUR ARM LIKE DAT

Papo whispers to me JUS TELLEM DATS YORE OLE

               MAN DERE ACROSS DE STREET

now, though, like i said

i’ve been trying to take care of myself

layin low. ‘chillin’ as george says.

he’s the reason i had to get off the phone

and we weren’t doing what my sigh implied; instead

just as i say hello he pulls out

this well over a gram bag singing

no blow no show. suddenly i got the blues

and i can’t help my skin

starts to itch and my asshole stricts up

you feel like the bottoms gonna drop out

and you grin seemingly against your will

and you get this urge to fall

to your knees

so we sat on the back porch and listened

to the el and the alley cats, eyes buggin out

drinkin liquids like crazy

he talked about these old blues guys

from the mississippi delta who sold their souls

to the devil to play with all their heart

how do you know, i ask, blasting

IT’S IN THE WORDS he says JUS LISSEN

sometimes i feel

i just gotta jump

i don’t like this life right now

i don’t like where it’s going

because it’s going nowhere

all this shuffling from place to place

is pointless, all

this drifting leaves a sticky film

clinging to my memory. i need

to sit and sort out all my lives

this life; cancer of bad memories, want

of revenge, CUT IT OUT, make it clean...

have i complained about the heat and humidity yet?

drains a person, i feel so ill

chewed my lips to pieces yesterday wondering

why i haven’t started bleeding yet

only to discover i miscalculated by a week

everything is dream to me i don’t punish

my nightmares for being nightmares. i love

them too

(i hear my paranoias before i see them

when i was a kid my dad used to call me

cornhead because i had big ears)

the next probable cause of this everyday

nausea bloat is disease. DISease, rotting female

parts, dave the tattoo man says

DON’T BE SO NEGATIVE

or you’ll give yourself tumors

pessimistic or realistic, that is

the question. at least

i’m still walking

because really, the underlying reason for every ache

and pain is not the devil shorn spit of frolicking

on the wrong side, paying for excess thru body

malfunctions but is really the very quickly deteriorating

OZONE LAYER. that’s why it’s so incredibly hot.

i remember the twilight zone

i’ve read jg ballard

so can we expect every summer to be as nasty

100 degrees by 10 o’clock

it’s the heat that drags you down

sweat drips, it’s the cause

of the clogged sinus, the numbed left

big toe, the pinched nerves in my back, the way

my legs feel so heavy sometimes

i’m not so sure

i wanna walk – see, i’m doing alright

with this life, grand in its own way

so that big blue minnesota sky

with a lone kite and the distant rumble

of a young boy’s dirtbike

that i keep looking for

on el platforms, walking down milwaukee avenue

always looking for in sunsets, flashing lights

crooked lines, that something

that is always bright, new, inspiring

* * * * *

"Letter to Dawn" is from So What If It's True: From theNotebooks of Lorri Jackson, edited by RW Spryszak and published by Thrice Publishing in 2017.

Lorri Jackson died in 1990 at the age of 28. She suffocated after injecting heroin. Some of her powerful work survives and tells her grimy truth without obvious complaint but with merciless accuracy.