Scott Beal's poems have appeared in journals such as *Indiana Review* and *Cream City Review*.  His chapbook, *Two Shakespearean Madwomen Vs. the Detroit Red Wings*, was published in 1999 by White Eagle Coffee Store Press.  He leads various writing workshops for kids in Ann Arbor in conjunction with the Neutral Zone, 826michigan, and Dzanc Books.

Three Poems (November 20, 2010. Issue 22.)

Doing the Dishes

I go for the gush and spatter
from the faucet over each slick object
I pass through my hands, I twirl to expose each face
to the rinse—I thirst for the rinse,
I spill across the counter, wicked with the rinse,
my puddles menace the bills piled in the corner,
crumbs rowing off in their little boats,
I boil for this escape, I slip through my own fingers,
a glass quiver slipping between my fingers,
as it crashes I crash, I fill the basin with splintered glare,
I fill with the sting and red runnel blurring a fingerprint
quickly clean in the spray,
the smear of sauce flaking free,
slabs of soggy carbs driven drainward,
I hurl myself in behind,
the disposal’s teeth are my teeth, churning
mush of the husks we've bitten into,
from which the calories rise in us now we’ve kicked away
from the table, as if our bodies were the heaven
each kernel grows in hope of deserving,
these calories froth in me, spiral through
my fist around the spatula,
I scale the plates like fish
and line them shining in the rack,
I bask in the gaze from each brown cyclops eye
open wider than my face,
each platter poised on the verge of a blink or shimmy,
the very verge! I devour the verge
even as I’ve wolfed our common morsels,
the traces of which I erase,
I save room for this emptiness,
this clean heat, this tarnishless surface,
ripe again with the promise of the next
recipe, though all I cook may pour from a jar
or clatter in chunks from a plastic pouch
the vitamins flood us to charge the next
skirmish, next shift, next riffle through pages,
next droop of the neck, next joint
excavation, next solo operation,
next growth spurt, lash out, firm shake, cymbal crash,
coin flip, hammer blow, brow kiss, tongue kiss,
thigh kiss, sigh, flinch, cry, wish, try
this, try this.

The Centime

“4. The centime (a French coin) was defined to have a mass of 2 g of copper. How does the mass of this coin relate to the circumference of the earth, the speed of light, and the physical properties of water?”
—high school physics exam, Oct. ‘89

Don’t waste it in the well. Water has no fidelity—
the massive hull it buoys it also steels
itself to crush;
it throws down stones
which riddle holes in your hostas
then vanish in vapor.
It's what we mostly are made of.
That ravaging. That vanishing. And so far
this is a way to avoid saying mass

is a word for tumor, that two grams
is small for a tumor. Too soon for symptoms.

My dad owes his life to a checkup he didn't want.

Now I get everything checked.

The teacher set ten minutes to solve this question.
Nineteen years later, two coppery spots
have appeared along the ribs
under my left arm. Have the spots moved?
asks the doc (that would be
a symptom)

but I don't have an answer. I'm only showing
my work for partial credit

as, in light too quick to catch,
the centime's faces flash

between “Liberte Egalite Fraternite”
and a severed head. If my spots
haven't strayed it's probably eczema,
so the doc prescribes cream
and follow-up, a way to avoid saying mass

is a word for crowd: everyone to whom this coin
ever mattered is gone—all who
used it to make change or pay a wage, who
spent it or stole it, squandered or doubled
it at dice, all who starved
or shat themselves to death, had their
throats cut or backs broken young enough
never to need a cure for cancer,
all tucked into the earth

whose circumference is 25,000 miles at the equator.

Proposing by Cassette

Why'd I drag you to Derek's room, why'd I need
to plug the machine in Derek's wall—perhaps
the same outlet where he charged his day-glo
All Stars, which is the one thing I recall
of Derek. Was the bedspread itchy?
We crouched on opposite ends and endured

the squeaky recording of the song I'd scratched out
in your honor between hangovers while you were off
plotting understory. Neighbors would scoff
as I perched halfway down the escape
to botch fingerings and brick verses.
In one of the world's occasional mercies
the tape is lost, so we can never be tempted
to pop it in and cringe through the warbles

I tuned and drilled for hours to perfect
on a borrowed 4-track. I'm sorry for the shadow
that leaned its neck against the other side of the wall
as we waited for the playback to end, sorry I shut up
my guitar beneath its cardboard lid and snapped
the buckles as you pulled up.

Once the tape clicked off I handed you
the twenty dollar sterling square-shaped ring
you'd preselected, so that none of it
was a surprise, not the question, not the ring,
not the paltriness of my means
or my reluctance to exceed them
for the kind of gesture people like
to remember, a stair lined with tulips and tea lights,

a whisper in the ear at the crest
of the tallest coaster at Cedar Point—
which is one plan I abandoned. Why
abandon it? I imagined
fumbling away all you'd asked for in the rush
when the lead car plunged.