Spiritual Exercises Read online

  ALSO BY MARK YAKICH

  POETRY

  The Dangerous Book of Poetry for Planes

  The Importance of Peeling Potatoes in Ukraine

  Green Zone New Orleans

  The Making of Collateral Beauty

  Unrelated Individuals Forming a Group Waiting to Cross

  NONFICTION

  Interviews from the Edge (coeditor with John Biguenet)

  Airplane Reading (coeditor with Christopher Schaberg)

  Poetry: A Survivor’s Guide

  Checking Out

  FICTION

  A Meaning for Wife

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  penguinrandomhouse.com

  Copyright © 2019 by Mark Yakich

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  This page constitutes an extension of this copyright page.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Names: Yakich, Mark, author.

  Title: Spiritual exercises / Mark Yakich.

  Description: New York : Penguin Books, 2019. | Series: Penguin poets

  Identifiers: LCCN 2019002878| ISBN 9780143133278 (paperback) | ISBN 9780525505037 (ebook)

  Subjects: | BISAC: POETRY / American / General.

  Classification: LCC PS3625.A38 A6 2019 | DDC 811/.6--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019002878

  Cover design: Lynn Buckley

  Cover art: Mark Yakich

  Version_1

  In Memoriam

  Ann Barker

  James Yakich

  Marjorie Yakich

  CONTENTS

  Also by Mark Yakich

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  I

  Sister Christopher

  Son of a Nun

  Forms of Love

  Post-Confessional

  Agape

  Baby Daddy Song

  Echo

  Rosary

  from The Book of Hours

  Epistemology

  Lest You Drove Yourself from Your Own Door

  Bound

  Things Said to Be Ineffable

  Biblical

  Why a Perfectly Good, Almighty, All-Knowing God Permits Evil

  Circle Jerk

  Divine Comedies

  II

  My Faith

  Parenting from Chicago to Abu Dhabi

  Autism

  Marriage

  A Song Means Little Without Separation

  Love Poem for Ex-Wife

  Object Lesson

  You See What You Want to See

  Unoriginal Sin

  Naive Conviction

  Love Poem for Ex-Husband

  Antidepressants

  Retreat

  For My Daughter

  Halfway Through Life

  There Is No Doubt

  Prayer

  Mindfulness

  Pastoral

  Elegy for the Engineer

  III

  Troubadour

  To Dream

  Hue and Cry

  Seasonal Affective Disorder

  Solitary

  Meditation

  Consciousness

  Dayenu

  Easter

  Empathy

  Christ of the Ozarks

  Ars Poetica

  Kindness

  Critical Thinking

  Reflection

  On My Other Mother’s Birthday

  Noble Song

  Revelations

  Notes

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Teach us to give and not to count the cost.

  —IGNATIUS OF LOYOLA

  I

  SON OF A NUN

  There’s the front door

  Through which she never came, and the winter

  Coat she wore while pregnant with me.

  And here’s the mourning I fail

  To euphemize. My day-old head clipped

  From a Polaroid and taped inside a locket.

  I’ve got no pet names, birthday cards,

  Or knotted strands from a blond afro

  In a black hairbrush. But this

  Much is true: Had we ever met,

  I’d have kept even her belly button

  Lint and ragged toenail clippings.

  I have but her habits: hyper-tidiness,

  Afternoon gin and tonics, midlife

  Panic attacks. I keep meaning to frame

  A photo of myself, eyes closed,

  Simply to see what she might have

  Looked like in the coffin.

  But they say there’s no need.

  If I want to bring her back, I just have to

  Put two fingers to my wrist

  And face the heartbeats. I prefer

  Hands at my throat, scratching carefully

  And hard as one does a lottery card.

  FORMS OF LOVE

  As if each of us is the sole

  Architect of our achievements.

  The mind, the metaphoric

  Heart, the genitalia—

  All our soft animals piecing

  Together can-do truths.

  Praise be, then, for Mother’s Milk,

  Baby Daddy, and busy days

  Ahead so easily forgotten.

  And praise the body that goes,

  That lameness shall also

  End. Lovers, dice, edible

  Thistle: Be unashamed.

  Those selves we are

  So full of are full of holes.

  POST-CONFESSIONAL

  You mustn’t cry. You mustn’t vomit.

  You mustn’t blame yourself for getting pregnant.

  You mustn’t gorge at buffets

  Or swill from paper bags. You mustn’t cheat.

  You mustn’t lie. You mustn’t regret

  Signing the documents

  Giving your infant son away.

  You mustn’t not pray.

  You mustn’t go numb until numbness becomes

  You. You mustn’t get high on heroin,

  Glue, gasoline, or whatever is under the sink.

  You mustn’t write in a diary with a flimsy lock.

  You mustn’t beat your breasts because the left is larger

  Than the right. You mustn’t drive all night to cross an imaginary border.

  You mustn’t sleep out in the woods in rain or snow or sun.

  You mustn’t go lesbian.

  You mustn’t become a missionary

  Abroad. You mustn’t throw out the rosary,

  Urge the father to take you back, or pretend

  For very long that nothing happened.

  For over the years, you mustn’t let go

  Because doctors keep telling you so.

  You mustn’t jump. You mustn’t hang.

  You mu
stn’t climb. You mustn’t wonder if or when

  Your son will search for you in his free time.

  You mustn’t orchestrate the reunion.

  You mustn’t hope for the day

  He finds your grave

  And gives God hell for the gift of sacrifice.

  You mustn’t trifle.

  You mustn’t die. You mustn’t believe

  There is or is not an afterlife.

  AGAPE

  Right before you arrived,

  she drew a bath with extra soap, wanting

  to make sure her body

  was supremely clean.

  It didn’t matter because in the hospital

  they made her wear two gowns.

  When she began to scream

  from the pain,

  they said to focus on something else

  in the room. On the wall opposite,

  there was a small horse

  in a landscape

  painting. When it was all over,

  she asked who the artist was.

  The nurses said they’d never

  noticed it before.

  When she was alone, she got out

  of bed to see. It was a print titled

  And the Ass Saw the Angel Kissing.

  What do you wish

  to hear, my son? She did what she could.

  But it was God who painted you

  on the world like tears down

  the face of a clown.

  BABY DADDY SONG

  That infant on your chest

  Sleeps. No matter the noise

  Machine & nest of plush toys,

  He’ll soon cry himself awake.

  The one you kiss & caress

  & sing to. The one who can’t yet

  Smile at his own shit. The singular

  One who looks like all the rest.

  That infant will grow & grow

  Until you have to buy him a big-boy

  Bed, pack loads of sack lunches

  & keep him out of trouble.

  Maybe he’ll need dental braces,

  A trumpet & Canadian meds.

  Maybe one of his angelic fingers

  Will finger a girl or a gun. This

  Infant on your chest, who looks

  Up to you now, his sky & favorite

  Star, someday he’ll discover who

  You were & who you really are.

  ECHO

  “What’s it called when somebody

  Doesn’t believe in God?” Daughter asked.

  “Oh, that just means they forgot,” Father said.

  They stepped around the little pet’s grave.

  “I can’t wait to die,” she said.

  “What?” he said.

  “Why?” he said.

  She patted the soil.

  “So that I can tell John Waynes how much I like his films.”

  “Oh,” he said.

  And she pressed harder,

  And later refused to wash her hands.

  FROM THE BOOK OF HOURS

  When Son looks up at the sun,

  He says he can’t help thinking

  That the light on his face is

  Both ancient and new—

  The light having taken millions

  Of years to reach the sun’s surface

  And then only eight more minutes

  To get to his eyes. “In other words,”

  Father says, “there’s no past

  As remote as the recent past.”

  “No, Dad,” Son says, “it’s just that

  When you die maybe it won’t

  Be any worse than my eyes

  Blinded for a moment by a star.”

  EPISTEMOLOGY

  And Daughter said, “Only girls are allowed in my room.”

  And Son said, “I love Momma, not Daddy.”

  And Momma said, “You can love Daddy, too.”

  And Daughter and Son said, “No!” and “No!”

  What’s knowledge without logical transition

  Sentences? What’s guilt sprung from the back

  Of the hand? What love we all have for each

  Others’ faces and buttocks. Appreciate with

  All your heart the love that runneth from

  The penis, the justice that greaseth the great

  Vaginal walls. Mother, you shined in the bedroom.

  Father, you were always too tired to carry on

  An affair. Nothing has an ideal form, and no

  Child wants to get caught being too good.

  LEST YOU DROVE YOURSELF FROM YOUR OWN DOOR

  Worked by pushing your kids

  To work harder. Got to work once

  Even though the car was wrecked

  Backing into one of our bikes.

  Later, bankrolled one of our

  Pregnancies and got arrested

  Because of a windshield tinted

  The color of your skin . . . O Momma,

  Didn’t you know that under

  The wrapping papers, we’d always

  Assumed there was a gift . . .

  And that behind your eyelids,

  We’d hoped there was a dream?

  You should have told us

  You were allergic to gold;

  We would’ve forgiven you for

  Not wearing a wedding ring.

  BOUND

  She wanted to know the difference between one man and another,

  she said to the pillow, and asked what it wanted to know.

  The pillow said it wanted to know how to get rid of the bed, that it was

  tired of its company.

  That’s a real problem, she said. She supposed the pillow, quiet again,

  would go on lying.

  But the pillow said, I can’t take you for a friend because while you must

  be interested in pillowness,

  which you could find nowhere better than right here in the bed,

  I’ll bet you’re just as interested

  in sheetness, which you can find in a pure form right over there—a pure

  form of evil, if you ask me.

  I know, she said, I want to be friends with you both. But the pillow

  slumped into a deep grief and said,

  If you could just remove the headboard and let everything fall toward

  the wall, I might be able to escape.

  Why, she said, don’t I ask the bed if he wouldn’t mind moving away

  from the wall enough so that you

  both have more room? After all, you both enjoy my body and the

  impression I leave; surely the bed will understand sharing . . .

  Not likely, said the pillow. That, she said, is ungenerous and

  unforgiving—what could you give the bed

  in return for moving a little? What could I give him? the pillow said,

  and then said nothing.

  Should I simply keep my eyes closed while you do whatever it is

  you’re going to do? she said.

  Before the pillow could answer, her lover rolled over to her side,

  his hands cupping her waist, his cock hard

  and getting harder. She reached back and pulled on it, thinking it was

  some kind of sign that the bed would

  never let the pillow alone. But it wasn’t a sign, or it was a sign like

  everything else is a sign, in name only.

  THINGS SAID TO BE INEFFABLE

  A book decorates

  A
nightstand

  And a body

  Decorates a bed.

  The nightstand

  May be made

  Of plastic, metal,

  Or wood,

  And is normally

  The same

  Height as the bed.

  Even if they are

  Very married,

  Lovers tarry

  And aver

  And aver and

  Tarry. Finally

  One of them

  Rises

  To search

  The dictionary

  For a word

  The other has

  Made up.

  BIBLICAL

  Just shy of the surface, fish rise

  And die, gleaming more

  Beautifully when belly-up.

  The moon kisses the sun’s ass;

  God sees to it. Loneliness,

  My child, isn’t so big after all.

  Take faithful Job: In the end,

  He got back a wife and children,

  Just not the same wife and children

  He began with. Nothing’s ever

  Too wrong or right. Go ahead,

  Hold your breath as long as you can.

  Once the fig leaf falls off,

  All metaphor is disgusting.

  WHY A PERFECTLY GOOD, ALMIGHTY, ALL-KNOWING GOD PERMITS EVIL

  Perhaps no pleasure is greater

  Than being left alone,

  Which may be why whatever

  It is that one wants

  To call or not call God

  Has little desire to be anything

  Other than by itself,

  A subject with no need

  For the direct object

  We would like to be,

  A mouth without a word,

  But an existence

  Everywhere

  By word of mouth.

  DIVINE COMEDIES

  Alone.

  Alone in bed.

  Alone in bed, natural causes.

  Alone in a meadow, crushed by felled pine.

  Alone in the woods, after running from grizzly, tripped over log, always

  at night, skull smashed on rock.

  Botulism.