Lucas Lecacheur, Dame de Soie, 2022. Website: www.perfectdesigns.live.
1.
What could I have done had blood not betrayed
Its chambers and appropriate corridors
When could I have abandoned music and passion
For what purpose would I listen to the sea
A grafted question or splintered explanation
Of the past and here you are with me asking
Why what’s the function of asking anything
In the first place when like the surfer
Learning to stand on water without his knees
Buckling (strengthen those core muscles buddy)
We ask knowing there is no answer because
The present swells with possibility
Having lived my childhood on an island
I could have been a surfer instead of lying
About surfing to anyone who might otherwise
See on my face the suspicious absence of pain
2.
Imagine me as I did on the water
I still cannot say what happened without
Tempting fantasy not escape
But a way to approach silence in legible terms
Surface of water the tail fin and nose
My mother does not spit on me threaten
To kill me then herself I am surfing I am
Cool calm and level-headed no anger
Can you believe how much I love tacos
And acoustic guitar I wear a hoodie and smoke
Weed I can give transformative
Advice if you’re in the right headspace
To listen this scar is from an experience
That’s all I’ll say and frankly all you need
To know yes it did involve sharks
And coral a gnarly riptide rocks
A longboard an accident I was too stoned
In fact I don’t remember what happened
3.
Was it after I lost speech that I realized
I had no personality besides
Its absence what was the opposite
Of violence how can I stage my body so
Nails and mindlessness can be explained
To my enemies and friends yet to myself
Surfing was not only the logical option
Also a fantasy so I surfed
That was a lie at first I planned to learn
The truth seemed close enough to experience
Until of course I underestimated
Everything energy money
The semi-permanent spasm through
My legs and back whenever touch became
A possibility close enough to
Anticipate here’s the water ignore
My face my conspicuous silence I am
Relaxed like you I walk across the waves
4.
You lied to learn a skill
The skill was costuming
Friend-of-a-friend
Brittany from Shoreham
Dated an older man
He must’ve been at this point
In college who surfed
Montauk early mornings
You could not but said you did
To Brittany during
Intermission of Bye Bye
Birdie: Youth Edition
Meantime between then
And when you would
Need to test your dishonesty
Was time to learn you never
Once stood on water
Though some believed you surfed
Or more likely heard you speak
And intuited but could not say
Through inflection or silence
That if you did not lie you withheld
Some secret relationship
To this non-hobby non-skill
Case in point you and Brittany
Never went on an ice-cream date
Though had one planned
The leading man earned
A standing ovation three nights
In a row later he studied
With passion at great expense
Drama and musical theater
But would never book another role
5.
Because I am a surfer I play guitar
Because I play guitar I contemplate
Slowly no impulse for boar rage
Because I contemplate no mother
Dreams of beating her antique kettle
Over my chest my hollowed drum because
No mother would dream of beating I never
Lose time to running from the cops
Away from the water back through the dunes
And since I’ve never lost time look
At all I learned to do how to sleep
How to serenade and how to speak
When otherwise I forget the words
Because I play an instrument the verb
Comes back to me I remember now
*
Eggshell plywood split down the center
Naked child on a piss-stained wiry
Blue carpet blood in his ears and on
His tongue band tee with the sleeves torn
Off no pants mother straddles him
And spits on his face nearly breaks
His nose but big boy doesn’t cry
When decorative hair loosens from scalp
Later the useless penitential cops come
Ask what happened they conclude
Our boy doesn’t listen could never obey
In the first place put him down say
It’s time to listen little pup or else
You’ll go away you’ll go away your mom
Tries her best don’t you understand
6. PET SOUNDS
Of the five members in the band Dennis
Wilson was the only Beach Boy who surfed
Manson advocate dead before
Forty after a lifetime of gin
And tobacco he drowned in the Pacific
His brother Carl was the family man
Dead at fifty-one from lung cancer
I’m telling you the boys loved to smoke
Mike Love donated to the Reagan
Campaign Brian drank whiskey in bed
When you think of the California surf-
Rock sounds you’re hearing a ringing in Brian’s
Ears his father palmed his head enough
As a boy Brian swore he heard voices
Choral and arranged what a lore
Music and money spin out of violence
His website sells a t-shirt with the graphic
Brian Wilson Is a Genius and while
I admire the branding technique come
On are those sounds not worth more than
Lazy marketing when Tanja and I listened
To “Good Vibrations” together she noted how
The theremin tone felt unsettling
I said that’s the point to feel unsettled
7. GOODBYE SURFING HELLO GOD
Is what you feel close to this she asked
When they finished the documentary yes
And no because another answer shames
Him into silence to think patterned image
Approximates or redresses pain instead
Of making something feel new sideways
Or the anti-intellectual confession
Hollywood record labels fashion
Brands they’ve all figured it out how
Feeling lives in the head not the body
For those who form memory inside
A chamber of customizable violence
Like him as he had with the weekly knives
And stone candlesticks no one heard
The stories until they did and when they did
He knew in their remorse they didn’t believe
Exactly the images too visceral
Their brains built a semantic distance from
His body their blue-gray guilt the blue-
Gray of clouds against the blue-
Gray of sound when he points out
The exact moment water meets sky
8. FOR TANJA
We left for Montauk I lied I never camped
Never surfed except for when I needed
To explain why my body looked the way
It did but you ragamuffin from
The Black Forest were drawn to other climes
You surfed and immediately called my bluff
We needed another explanation how
To account for years of motion in mind
Not in body we swam and a lifeguard
Warned us of recent shark attacks within
Minutes we had to laugh we laughed because
It was funny we drank tequila and kissed
All promising an honest attempt
At language but it would be years before
We could understand why I’ve needed
This structure because otherwise silence
Communicates more precisely what
Exposition can’t let me tell you why
This happened and you will understand
Because of how the line ends
9. THE SURFER SLEEPS IN THE BLACK FOREST
What mothers call “a natural conclusion” is not here
The market sells flipflops made from bark
In the forest I see elephants and blue paintings
A half-moon a Finnish man claiming
He died four times in the twentieth century
I am nowhere near the water or at least farther
Away from the end than I prefer do you believe
In the underground an ocean will strip
The forest soon enough and no one like me
Will be left to surf I wear shells and spikes
Around my neck to signal I am always
Elsewhere that the mind betrays
The source of dreams do you believe in trees
Elephants moss paintings the source
Of wind the source of water the source of bees
10.
I walk up the board I walk down the board
It is January the water half-frozen
My wetsuit is lined with viscera
I collected from the shore from the beach
Everyone I know watches me
Correct a bend around an ice-chunk
Tanja and Lola clap when I push through
The barrel without crashing the waves come
In from nowhere then recede back
To nothing I am cool not at all
Panicked where I go too is back to nothing
It’s time to go home Tanja says Lola’s
Half-awake so I leave the water
Drain my wetsuit towel off
Eat a sandwich start the car are
You warm enough yes are you
Buckled up yes close your eyes Mama
Will carry you to bed when we get home
POSTSCRIPT: CONSCIENCE BAY AND THE NARROWS
—for Jen
Having lost silence in the mess
Of speech I explained nothing
Having lost my appetite I made a sandwich
And having lost our puppy Virgil to Lyme
Disease burying him in a shoebox next
To our drained pool my mother said
*
I hope no one finds this grave and thinks
I buried my abandoned baby
Having lost the right to safekeeping
I drafted then scrapped a musical phrase
Having lost the veneer of stateliness
I drew a scuba diver on a map
*
Of the Long Island Sound near us
The connecting body Conscience Bay
Where the fortunate keep their docks
Floating through winter a handyman to scrape
Barnacles off the metal where
The children play flashlight tag without
*
Flashlights without ears and eyes
No bodies no names from Conscience Bay
Through the Narrows to the Sound from
The Sound to the underwater temple
Decorated with teeth and tissue lobes
Kelp and blooms spit so much
*
Saliva watch the diver pass through
Investigate record forget and remember
Having nothing left to let go
I let nothing go
