It was anybody’s son at the door
in the dripping green slicker
with the unsigned contract for selling my soul
to Holy-wood for a sack of gold
the mere taxes on which would’ve once
lit my greedy eyes with cartoon
dollar signs. The job was a trick I hoped
to turn, having bankrupted myself on the dark,
low-ceilinged box I lived in with plumbing from way
before Roosevelt. And as I looked for a pen
I asked him in, and he asked to snapshot
what he saw as my posh digs with battered camera
from a long lost pre-digital age. Cramming
for his builder’s exam, he was, the terms
cornice and chair rail were enchanted spells
he was proud to master. And this
new messenger job—which kept him weaving
between cabs and buses on this
thundered day, to stand in wet helmet
in my foyer—beat like hell his last
hauling bags of tacos up the graffitied
halls of public housing. Better wage,
better tips, nicer rooms to imagine
he might hammer together once
he got certified. He rode off in a zigzag,
dodging a bus that belched smoke.
You won’t believe his name was Jesus,
and I’d been weeks entreating the iron gray
sky to see specifically Him. O Lord, last seen
on battered mountain bike, green wings extended
behind in wind, come back, make me rich again.
Coda Toward the New New Covenant: Death Sentence
(for Father Joseph Kane)
We lean close when the dying speak
though instinct says recoil from
the decaying form, but silence
radiates off them and blooms our loud
selves out, out, out of the way, and we long
to know what from each essential
self will exhale over us, and if we every
single one of us (it would only work
if we all agreed) listened to our own
deaths growing inside us geologically
slow inching forward as the skull
will someday edge through skin, then we would
each speak only the truest lines:
I’ve always loved you.
Acknowledgments
Ever grateful for my editrix, Jennifer Barth at HarperCollins, who keeps pages rolling out. Ditto for readers like Rodney Crowell, Betty Sue Flowers, Sarah Harwell, Brooks Haxton, Terrance Hayes, Amy Koppelman, Herb Leibowitz, Paul Muldoon, Sarah Paley, and George Saunders.
Thanks also to the following publishers:
The New Yorker: “The Organ Donor’s License Has a Black Check,” “Illiterate Progenitor,” “Recuperation from the Dead Love Through Christ and Isaac Babel” (published here as “Petering: Recuperation from the Sunk Love Under the Aegis of Christ and Isaac Babel”), “Face Down,” “Carnegie Hall Rush Seats.”
Poetry: “Loony Bin Basketball,” “The Burning Girl,” “Read These,” “Suicide’s Note: An Annual,” “The Obscenity Prayer,” “Awe and Disorder,” “The Blessed Mother Complains to the Lord Her God about the Abundance of Brokenness She Receives,” “A Perfect Mess.”
Parnassus: “Animal Planet,” “Bolt Action,” “The Age of Criticism.”
Commonweal: “The Voice of God,” “The Devil’s Delusion,” “Messenger.”
Ploughshares: “Psalm for Riding a Plane” (published here as “Notes from the Underground”).
About the Author
MARY KARR’s four books of poetry include: Sinners Welcome, Viper Rum, The Devil’s Tour, and Abacus. Her poetry secured her fellowships from the Guggenheim, the NEA, and the Bunting Institute at Radcliffe College. She’s published three bestselling memoirs credited with kick-starting a renaissance in the form—Lit, Cherry, and The Liars’ Club—as well as The Art of Memoir, which was also a New York Times bestseller. Her Syracuse graduation speech, published as Now Go Out There, lit up the Twittersphere. Her Americana song collaboration with country hunk Rodney Crowell, Kin, reached number one on the charts and was a Grammy finalist. Her book on aging, Just You Wait, is in progress.
Karr is the Peck Professor of Literature at Syracuse University and commutes there from New York City, where she is grandmother to a pit bull.
Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.
Also by Mary Karr
Now Go Out There
The Art of Memoir
Lit
Sinners Welcome
Cherry
Viper Rum
The Liars’ Club
The Devil’s Tour
Abacus
Copyright
TROPIC OF SQUALOR. Copyright © 2018 by Mary Karr. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Cover designed by Robin Bilardello
Cover photograph © Hal Morey/Stringer/Getty Images
FIRST EDITION
Digital Edition MAY 2018 ISBN: 978-0-06-269984-8
Version 04062018
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-269982-4
About the Publisher
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers Australia Pty. Ltd.
Level 13, 201 Elizabeth Street
Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia
www.harpercollins.com.au
Canada
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
Bay Adelaide Centre, East Tower
22 Adelaide Street West, 41st Floor
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
M5H 4E3
www.harpercollins.ca
India
HarperCollins India
A 75, Sector 57
Noida
Uttar Pradesh 201 301
www.harpercollins.co.in
New Zealand
HarperCollins Publishers New Zealand
Unit D1, 63 Apollo Drive
Rosedale 0632
Auckland, New Zealand
www.harpercollins.co.nz
United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF, UK
www.harpercollins.co.uk
United States
HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
195 Broadway
New York, NY 10007
www.harpercollins.com