Two Poems / by Vanessa Gubbins

The Walk

 

How do you

feel I ask

as an affirmation of

the good,

 

“So, overall, you’re good?”

 

riveted by Walser’s brush

stroke,

your hand        mine

 

the sound of tires on gravel    

                                          the silence of feet

in the space between                           

                                                      that know the way

 

endless stores

cafés

 

they pass us by

 

they are the same / Walser is the same

 

again,

again,

 

you point,

“there”

 

for         there

and    there

and      there

 

I hold the stern

to keep the tires still

 

pedals aiming at

the window glass

of that store,

any

 

my eyes following

the cracking light :

 

yeah,

here—

 

 

 

 

Thou Shalt Not

 

You do not talk about

Afghanistan,

Tom says,

pulling at his

civilian

home-for-the-month uniform :

jeans & button-down,

IPA bottle-cap between

the forefront of his teeth / lower lip,

bulging

 

my friend

Scott calls it a pragmatic

thing, more than

an ethical one,

 

I sit between

the two,

contemplating:

 

I.

 

if x, not y is justified

just in the case that

 

x =                 y =

surviving       doing the ethical thing

 

then,

survival instincts & Practical Ethics,

necessarily

mutually exclusive,

 

II.

 

or are we never talking

about anything other

than a hidden conditional?

 

Ama sua

Ama quella

Ama llulla

 

Don’t steal           =         If I steal from you, you will steal from me

Don’t lie                =         If I lie to you, you will lie to me

Don’t be lazy        =         If I’m lazy, you will not make community with me

 

III.

 

Work in the

survival part of it:

 

Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not kill.

 

IV.

 

Tom says

airborne landing is a

bitch,

+10% casualties

& you got yourself an investigation.


Not at 9.9999.

 

 

 

 

Vanessa Gubbins at age 8 in Lima, Peru had a pseudonym planned for her first published anything. Vanessa Gubbins at age 23 in New York, NY has decided to stop warring with names. She promises that this is her "real" one.