Exercise 6

Keiler's Kettle

It is the tea kettle in him. Today, as heard in his recitation of a poem by Phillip Schultz about San Franc(isss)sco, yesterday, a poem called...One can't write this without making it sound like a crude rendition of a Mexican accent. But you know---the whistle of a friend who's had an ashtray slot half-circled out his front teeth by a bureau edge, or the wheeze in Me, Myself, and Irene right before Jim Carey tells Renee Zellweger her face is pursed as if sucking on a lemon. So exact--exact---he thought. He thought, this is adequation, the old Cisco peripheried by tug boats,

---which toot, ---but the afternoon, the little scraggler in overalls, hands behind his bag, cheeks inflated, big-eyed, toying with a blade of grass and growing lungs.

Who's out there keeping track of Ss? Scrabble players. Where's the scrabble player musicians---this is the problem---with ears. The old poets. The old audiences. Specialty. I'll call for a Rennaissance---no---too many dopes, "Mister Keilers," Minnesotans. Loyalty's out a mouth, like too much, too too much.

He whistled down the stairs, uninterrupted, raising eyebrows at those heading up to walk the impeccable carpet, making sure not to let any of their brooms' bristles fall onto the rug. He was clean, they knew it. Unions.

It was muggy outside and pressed your breath against your face, walking into your lunch. Thai, today, Wendy…Wendy. Anyways, there was no one walking. There never was. He went in to record just after midnight and did the week's bits in one sitting. It was Billy Collins birthday today. He liked the guy. A little cheese, but his biggest critics had nothing to show for their snubs. Longfellow's too. Whitman's on Wednesday. Millay's on Friday. Good poets, he chose good poets. Prairie Home was out in Wild Wood, they'd leave on Friday. New England and the Midwest. He would ask why and pretend he didn't, hoping there'd be another answer. This is why people keep showing up to Romeo and Juliet, he thought, hoping she'd wake up in time. Maybe this had to do with California, maybe he was Californian. He surely was. These Minnesotans, they sat by the radio. This was good, or did it mean you were stupid. But that was good too. Harmless. Not true. Out of contact. Better.

Every time he thought of an S poem he wrote it down. This is how they became S poems, poems listed, one per line, three pages front and back in the middle of a standard composition notebook. He had S poems to last him until January, to perfect the high sssss---with perfect teeth---imagine that! He saw these sssssswweees like one does birds too quick to be caught in turn: just snow: elegant fireworks, the silent, draping willow ones that keep the sky crinkling a heliotrope long after the smoke clears. This was the beauty of a disintegrating steam.

He was a patron of AM radio. Tax deductible. He thought more than he listened, he had an obligation to at least ignore it. Material. When the air conditioner kicked up in his car he got a little chill under his armpits that mixed with the tingle of listening to his daughter's message. Twenty-seven years and his little girl could still save him from the world. No one did sentimental better than he did, rich, a slight whistle, esophagul grain blurring his well-kept hair, a refurbished farm illumed in indirect sun: Mr. Keiler. Daddy, still.

What things were small enough? It wasn't the thing, he thought, it was what the ear, the eye, hand, had to do---the vulnerability that followed exertion, exhaustion, the frilling of things edges between will and lagging equilibrium. This is why he read other people's poems, sang other people's songs: the small retracts and serves the edgeless---he syncopated the small----contemporary poets needed him. Not Billy Collins. Eliot. Though he liked Eliot with a bit of whistle.

No one knew he ate McDonald's. A number 4. Yes, could he have some barbeque sauce if they would. It was there in the sauce. Maybe it was the sieve of microphones catching the steam, the sifters blackening. Yes, like rain, like rain, not too much, just enough to give it the look of endurance, the creosote of long lived in homes: Cisco peripheried with tug boats. They needed to see it the way he did, hear it before seeing it as he did, then what needed to would manifest.

"Mister Keiler!?!"

Oh no: Minnesotans. He didn't respond, he drove forward a yellow arrow and paused. He didn't know if he was in the mood to be 'Mr. Keiler.' He wanted to devour and blow across a blade of grass. But he continued to the window, rolling up his window to thwart the autograph, or worse, the picture. The girl was well lip-sticked, a brick color. He couldn't count the colors in her hair, just those streaks that composed the rainbow between her hat and ear.

"Are you Garrison Keiler?"

"Yes. Yes, I am."

"I knew it was you."

"Thank you, it is kind of you to listen."

He heard a voice whispering out of sight, hissing. There was probably spit hitting her neck. Ask him. A laugh.

Holding his bag, graying with grease: "Could you smile for me?"

"I would prefer to stay out of pictures for the time being. You know---the soul---like the Kiwanis tell us--"

"I don't want to take your picture. I just want to see your teeth."

He hesitated, unprepared to be used in this way, stretching his face, bringing his brows down and his lips up. She was surprisingly blunt, not a single like. He didn't smile at her, he thought it was funny and turned to share the compliment.

She turned her head to the faceless voice. "He has all his teeth. This guy bet me the mop job that you were missing a front tooth. Thanks Mr. Keiler. Have a good night. Saturday."