Hi. Many years ago, I read Scott Heim's poem "The Collector". This is a wondrous and disturbing and beautiful poem. The poem appears in the chapbook Saved from Drowning by Scott Heim, published by Chiron Review Press in 1993. I loved the poem when I first read it in 1993, and I love the poem now. I've thought about this poem many times over the years. The imagery is vivid, and the topics addressed could be considered to be "taboo". In short, exactly the kind of poetry I love best! I am glad to be able to share this poem with you here. I suspect you'll find it just as memorable and disturbing as I do. Best wishes and Happy Halloween! --Carl Miller Daniels




The Collector

Tonight, I feel life's downward spiral
reversing.  I've waited years
for something like this.  No doubt they were smiling
when they died, returning from another win,
the ice cream truck speeding from the bridge's curve
to smash the side of the bus. Three
stars of the football team, gone.
Monday will fill the halls with pool-eyed girls,
teachers thumbing yearbooks, a stupid throng
sniffling beside lockers bedecked
with Polaroids and jersey numbers.
But all that's hours away.
Tonight is mine.

After three, I leave my room.
I abandon these comic books and stamps;
these butterflies and beetles soaked with alcohol.
I walk the darkest avenues of this worthless town.
Hymns from crickets: they know what's happened.
It's the only sound as I head for the funeral home,
gripping the brick wrapped in the towel
I used to wipe my stomach after I worked off
my dreams of them.  When I'm there
I throw it through the window; crawl inside.
Slowly, my eyes adjust
and their beautiful shapes solidify.  They're spread
on tables lined with velvet
so smooth, touching it would feel like
touching a beating heart.  They've been stitched
like the opponent's bullpup mascot, that dummy
they beat and burned at yesterday's pep rally.
The street light draws haloes
against faces that would have graduated this May.
Now, they're precise and still
as butterflies I pin behind glass in my room.
They're only a little dead.

I ask who's first, remembering strides
between yesterday's classes, jeans tight
against their asses like peelings on ripe globes of fruit.
Their skins still smell like the field's chalked grass;
like soap flakes from the after-game shower.
One at a time, I slide against them.
Rick's shoulders swell beneath his thin
cotton shirt, muscles solid as unripe apples.
Last week, I spied through binoculars,
his head tilting toward the car window as his girlfriend
left marks on his neck.  Even in tonight's dark
the violet hints still show.  I move my mouth
from bruise to bruise, whispering
love, love on the skin.  When finished  
I switch tables.  This linebacker's body
that made Dave famous: here,
in the palms of my hands.  Between his legs
he is soft and round, like the finger he jammed
in the hollow of my throat to shut off my yell
when he hammered me in the stomach last March.
I push myself into him,
easy as the pin into insect, holding him close
until I'm through.  Only the quarterback
remains.  I delicately trace the curve of Kevin's cheek
with my tongue.  I hover over
his mouth like a moth against light.
My tongue catches on the blue stitches
that join his lips.  I let this moment
linger, the room falling away around us, then step back
to look at them.  This is the final memory
I will collect, the final kisses
that will unite us forever, their bodies filled
with the knowledge of my love.

--Scott Heim (This poem appears in Scott Heim's book Saved from Drowning, published by Chiron Review Press in 1993. The poem is posted here with the author's permission.)