DANGEROUS GOODS

POEMS
SEAN HILL
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:o+, Text by Sean Hill
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews, no part of this
book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher:
Milkweed Editions, +o++ Washington Avenue South, Suite oo, Minneapolis, Minnesota +.
(:oo) :o-o
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Published :o+ by Milkweed Editions
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Cover design by Charles Rue Woods
Cover artwork composed from images: canoe by MShep2, starlings by Rene Mansi, and map by
Roberto A. Sanchez. All images from Istockphoto.com.
Author photo by Bart Nagel
+ + + +o +; : +
First Edition
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hill, Sean, +,;o-
[Poems. Selections]
Dangerous Goods : poems / Sean Hill. First edition.
pages cm
ISBN ,;:-+-;++-;- (alk. paper) ISBN ,;:-+-;++-:,- (e-book)
I. Title.
PS3608.I43775A6 2013
811'.6dc23
:o+o:o+
Milkweed Editions is committed to ecological stewardship. We strive to align our book
production practices with this principle, and to reduce the impact of our operations in the
environment. We are a member of the Green Press Initiative, a nonprot coalition of publishers,
manufacturers, and authors working to protect the worlds endangered forests and conserve
natural resources. Dangerous Goods was printed on acid-free 100% postconsumer-waste paper
by Friesens Corporation.
Hill_Goods_int.indd 4 10/22/13 9:50 AM

POSTCARD TO WRONG ADDRESS

Yesterday I was, one place to begin
and Today I saw, another, but I
know I doesnt matter to you. You
dont know I or me for that matter.
But you are appropriate
appropriately unt like the not it
we sang out in our childhood games.
Youre like a confessional or, maybe,
the restaurant suggestion box;
you dont care if Im penitent
or cynical. I could tell you about
the side of paradise I hiked
today with its ora and fauna
the birds! or the Sidle Parade,
a subtle spectacle I saw yesterday,
and it matters not. I could tell
you how I really feel about my
father or my shoe size, and theyd
both have the same weight like
the Weighing of the Heartthe soul
needs to balance the feather to gain
entry into heaven. Tomorrow
I intend to go to the Dead Mans
Button Museum. Theyre also
called dead mans throttlesinstalled
in trains in case an engineer keels
over. Without pressure, the brakes engage.
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POSTCARD TO EDUARDO
for E. Corral
Leaving Dickinson, ND, on ,W with the sun
rising at our backs, a tractor trailer in front
and from the height of my vision, from nowhere,
or from heaven, a wine-soaked handkerchief, trailing
its edges, falls as quiet as a bruise into the next
lane overa barn swallow caught in the trucks wash.
They once lived in caves, but now make their nests
in man-made shelters, under bridges and barn eaves
barns where might be kept a horses harness,
the parts of which you recited to me oncecrupper,
martingale, throatlatchrolling your rs, lashing those
words lavishly for all theyre worth. Ive since been told
one should always keep the throatlatch nice and loose.
Hill_Goods_int.indd 4 10/22/13 9:50 AM

POSTCARD FROM A DESTINATION

Ive heard a man would need a keel
bone six feet long
to cradle muscle enough to pull him
up on his own, keep him in the air,
or wind between a breeze and a gale,
a bit more than enough water
to drown in, and a sense
of displacement to set sail.
A keel bone is not a rudder, but
either can get you here.
I suppose I should say, it was warm
and clear here today, or
boats have keels and birds
have keel bones.
Was I the space between the rufed
feathers on a robins red breast
a wispy yen for warmthbefore
you knew me?
A keels leading edge
is called a cutwater,
not to be confused with
a shearwatera seabird
seldom seen from shore.
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o
This note could t in a bottle; ones
being emptied; the last red drop rolls
down its neck.
Soon dregs will rest in the curve
of the wineglasss bellya hammocks
sag here, where the days dregs sit on the sea
at the far edge of everything.
Here is me; I am here; I am desire; I
am nothing when you come, I fear.
Ill miss you when youre here. Stay
home; keep me forever.
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;
BAHAMAS VOYAGE:
MEDITATIONS ON BLACKS ON BOATS
Day +
Up the gangway of the Big Red Boat
the SS Atlantic
white, red, and blue
banners and streamers
A colorful crew croons along
The Star-Spangled Banner
Accents thick sing-songy high
and guttural low as the boat
leaves port out to sea traveling slow
Day :
A cruise to the Bahamas
on the th of July
occasioned by a family reunion
Below decks cramped in with
my little brother and a complimentary
bottle of champagne
The champagne goes down
The water on-board briny that of coastal cities
port towns to which slave ships made their rounds
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:
Day
On deck in the sun
headphones on listening to
Charles Mingus: Town Hall Concert
Two songs So Long Eric
and Praying With Eric
After the rst they clap
and Mingus introduces:
This next composition was written
when Eric Dolphy explained to me
that theres something similar
to the concentration camps once in Germany
now down South.
The only difference being
they dont have gas chambers
and hot stoves to cook us in
yet.
He continues:
So I wrote a piece called
Meditations as to how to get some wirecutters
before someone else gets some guns to us.
Conation and conagration
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,
Day
On a slave ship in the hold below decks
Barely enough room for burialsqueezed
in tight like a cofn too smallsurrounded
by others, sisters and brothers, fathers and mothers
like books shelvedhandsomely bound
in blackvolumes in an ongoing travelogue
Day
I was born
Black and bold
sprayed on a concrete mooring block
on the pier
A stock line
the once upon a time of Slave Narratives
They were born in America
Day o
Framed by the portholes red rim
two blues meet
Waves rise redundant undulant
a cats hacklesdeep blue
(of brand new jeans he buys for the label)
indigo that was king before cotton
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+o
Day ;
Bombay Sapphire I bought duty free
in a bottle the clear blue of the water
at a Bahamian beach
does not comfort me.
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++
VOICES IN ST. PAULS CATHEDRAL
for Geddes Thomas
Christopher Wren designed it from base to dome
built in the +;th & +:th centuries,
declared complete about ninety years after
the rst twenty were brought to Jamestown.
Alone in the Whispering Gallery
I lean to the ear of no one to my left
Can you hear me?
A voice, my fathers,
his fathers, comes from the right
Can you hear me?
Ive brought voices here with me;
they linger the way odors do.
A friend who visited the citadel at Gore Island said
you can smell death left over from the days of the trade.
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+:
FORTNIGHT
for Eric Black
Big Bens struck ve again.
Why am I here at the Millennium Wheel,
the eye of London? I dont want to queue-up
wont queue-up, but Im here.
London is lousy with old buildings,
statues, parks, theaters, and museums.
The Tate Britain houses a piece by Richard Dadd
a nineteenth century Brit.
Killed his father and lived a long life
in asylums painting fairy landscapes.
The soundtrack for this solitary sojourn
quiet and incidental like the puzzle piece
found face down when I disembarked at Heathrow
a dreary oatmeal until turned over to reveal
no pattern, a solid green, unexpected
hard to place like the tune the guy on the Tube whistled
now rattling my head or the dead pigeon I saw
from Westminster Bridge yesterday oating in the Thames
wings slightly out somewhere mid-apeither uttering
down on sidewalk clutter or clapping away
from the progress of pedestrians
ying on the waves of tour boats wakes.
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POSTCARD TO ANNA
for A. Potter
In Cairo I missed street pigeons; they were
not there at the open-air eatery where
I dined with Jasmine off Talaat Harb
when the morsel of macaroni missed
my mouth. I only saw pigeons on menus
and the backseat of a Peugeot in and atop
a sturdy-looking wooden cage because
the cage door was open. There were
no sparrows to clean up my mess either.
We found them on a menu a few days
later. The waiter hesitated, then translated
the Arabic for our table, and we said Yes,
we want sparrows. The hesitation at bones
holding up, resisting the jaw, my maw,
those bones for tendons to bind muscles
to and help buoy that tiny body above
the ow of folk with their sedentary
urban tendencies, a mouthful that came
with a people stopping by this river,
edged with papyrus that they beat at
and dried brown to leave notes for each
other. They were delicious, those sparrows,
in their port wine sauce.
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+
POSTCARD TO MY THIRD CRUSH TODAY
Ive been on the move; the bottoms
of my shoes have rested on forty-eight states,
six Canadian Provinces, seven countries,
three continents, and the crush is constant.
You look like someones daughter;
I nd that so attractive. I once
thought this, but now its someones
mother or aunt more often than not
or cousin or uncle or brother or son
on occasion. The crush is everywhere,
or maybe its me, my luck, like always
seeing the corner crooners by the storefront
of The Heart, loiteringsinging for quarters
and grins. Most days I can count on the rst
and second crush, and sometimes theres a fth
or sixth. Theyre as likely not to notice me
as to smile in my eyes. Either way my heart
skips like those at stones that kiss the skin
of the pond and y off again before sinking.
Today it is you in that polka dot dress I need
to thank for getting me to three. The Hearts
a big chain; theres one everywhere you go,
and they rarely have those No Loitering signs.
Youre more likely to see No Solicitations.
Ill leave this postcard here for you to nd.
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+
DISTANCE BETWEEN DESIRES
From the moon to the end of this poem
hums the distance between desires.
In troughs of night Jasmine slept,
numb from the consumption of rays
from the moon. Through to its end, this poem
fends off desire. A toast to the heavy
drum that pulls us daily and urges that we
hum the distance. Between desires,
men scoff at the moon, hung lightly to shine
plum-dark nights, as they measure breaths
from the moon to the end. Of our poems,
ends tossed out to hold them off, we hope
some may say they rumble on and pleasingly
hum the distance between. Desires
bend us and bend. Doff your hat, where I come
from, a show of respect. Desires plumb where we come
from. The moon to the end of this poem
lends soft light. As one desire leaves another
hums the distance between desires.
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+o
VACATION
I crossed the Mississippi
for the rst time
early our second morning out, driving
slow, and after ve days of driving
driving and visiting,
driving and car troubles,
driving and myriad signs inviting:
COME SEE THE WORLDS LARGEST INDIAN RESERVATION
GREEN PETRIFIED WOOD NEXT RIGHT
LIVE ALBINO CAVE BUFFALO
FREE ;: oz. STEAK
(theres always a catch),
driving and car troubles,
driving and driving west,
driving and not to the ocean yet
I cant sleep in Albuquerque.
Yesterday I realized
the land between
here and Santa Rosa
(where we lost
the transmission
and a day) is
too bare and at.
The horizons not cluttered or
broken,
brought closer by trees
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+;
or anything.
I wasnt meant to see that far.
My mother, father, brother,
grandmothers, and aunts
everything excised.
I cant feel it anymore.
Distance grows in the bones.
Tonight I feel the room
spinning like after a bender,
but Ive been sober
since Georgia.
I can feel the world
wobble under this bed
off balance because
Georgias gone to oblivion.
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