I can’t have you
whistling through the vines
out there,
teasing cool
in the summer heat
and bringing,
for just a moment,
the fragrances
of another man’s
supper
My head lays
on the kitchen table
like a chopping block,
pressed against the scratches
in its perfect,
marred surface,
lolling on
the center leaf
it is seven PM
exactly
when I will lift
my head again
to gaze in to you,
cool night air,
like a memory
to think your name
and dream of you
in winter
I watched that video
again
for the hundredth time
but maybe only the twenty-fifth
without you
and I don’t even know
what day it was
it was every day
at 6:01
until we memorized
each word and we
laughed whether
we fucked it up
or not
but look, man
we’re in the
prime of our lives
got to live the way we got to
gonna make us some money again
gonna fight
but not all fighters
are champions
and I don’t even know
what day it was
but I hope
it didn’t
hurt
I fell for you
and I think you fell
for me,
too,
maybe eleven
years
ago
we did our best
to fuck that up
and it worked
so well
that I
stopped
calling
***
You can’t answer now
even if you
ever
wanted to
but I’m sorry
I never remember
anymore
to miss you
somehow,
though,
I don’t think
you would
mind
You are a white-hot point in space
searing through my retinas as I
stare and I
am clinging to this moment
trying
so
desperately
to
hang
on
but I know how this ends
even as you burn as hot as ever
I know how this ends
because it’s the same
every time
and it will be no surprise
as my fingers tire
my grip slips
and I am flung through nothing
and I am incinerated in your
holy light but I
am clinging to this moment
trying
so
desperately
to
hang
on
but my clothes
are already
burning
my pulse beats
within my skull
day by day by
hour by minute
potential
more impossible
by the second
systems slowing
logarithmically
cells regenerating
less
and
less
while the sea ice
e v a p o r a t e s
to the North
of us
I Am Dying
just as the Earth
is Dying
And faster
from arrogance
And faster
from greed
Time does not heal
all wounds.
Time
is a wound
there is no stopping
the bleeding from
AND I STILL SEE YOU SOMETIMES
DANCING EVEN THOUGH YOU DON’T MEAN TO
LAUGHING WITH YOUR MOUTH CLOSED
YOU REFUSE TO SMILE
Please don’t make excuses for me;
If I am to die in this sphere
let me die by rights,
I beg of you
You told me there are rules
about how babies are born,
about how clothes are worn,
about gluttony and adultery
You spent every Sunday chatting
with your Brothers and Sisters
about how the rules apply
to everyone
There are no exceptions
Then your Husband wrote a letter
about getting out early.
He quoted Seneca, who said
that the wise man will live
as long as he ought
There are no exceptions
So do not talk about heaven
There are rules, after all,
and certain rules apply
when the wise man
cashes
out
1.
it was unseasonably warm that day
and the day before, too,
and it was windy. I remember that much,
and the sun in my eyes
on the patio
through the plate glass
on the short drives
here to there and here to there
while our friends traveled through Germany
for the sixth or seventh time
there was nothing but time then
drinking black coffee in jackets
with the traffic hustling by
whispering about forever at 20
and I remember meaning what I said out there
and I remember the look in her eyes
2.
Time has a way of stopping sometimes
with a phone call for example
in a tacky Chinese restaurant
surrounded by our people
while the sun set just outside
and I told those people what I heard
after I pressed the End Call button
while our hearts all stopped beating
forever, I think,
for just a moment
3.
I drove to her in darkness
and she was all alone
when she let me in to her sitting room
There were no lights on
but she could see me
and she hated every word
I don’t know if I’d leave her now
but I left her then,
nine years ago
4.
We sat in a cafe
in silence
for what couldn’t have been
forever
and my tea got cold
as the weather had
that night
we talked about your boots
not in detail
but we did
5.
I remember you
Warmth in March
sun in the afternoon
I remember you
black coffee
downtown patio
friends in rooms
and cars
and futures
and cul-de-sacs
and I
still try to remember
to remember you
boots and all
You are dead and gone
and I still do not know
what that means
In eighth grade we were seated
at a table in a corner
in an art class
why was that enough
We talked every day
and sometimes we walked home
together
One day in the summer
you and your neighbor came over
unannounced
so we walked a long time
and found another friend
from that art class
Then I was in high school
and you were there too
so we memorized each-other’s
home phone numbers
We played games
every weekend
our junior year
The next step we planned together;
community college until
both of us slept through
the bus to our second
semester finals
We drove a lot that year
Then we found jobs
and you worked until you didn’t
so you moved away
while I stayed
but you came back
I was a manager then
so I hired you
and we did what we always had
but sometimes you got things wrong
that you never had before
Then Matt died and you left again
and I blamed you for a long time
but I forgave you when you came back
when you told me you were schizophrenic
when you showed up at a show to scream
when we fought in the parking lot
when you sped away drunk
when you messaged me angrily
I forgave you
but I never called your phone again
Then it was Christmastime 2 years ago
you were sick, you were tired
you were sorry – you swore you were sorry
you were dying from bone cancer
in a broken arm
I told you that I loved you then
and I meant it and I still mean it
I told you that you’d be OK
and I’m sorry that wasn’t true
When they took your arm you said
all you wanted was a life
When it didn’t work you told me
you just didn’t wan’t to die alone
I’m sorry.
I met you on a Wednesday night
you were twenty one years old
Your flight to school in the Netherlands
was only two days away
We left the bar to play music
and your drumming was perfect
for all the tunes he called
and I saw you smile at him
when you caught him smiling at you
You were bright as a beacon
at the center of a starless desert
You were going to be a neurologist.
He will miss you every day.
We walked from the east forever ago
dragging our belongings in burlap bags
You were with me then
with a smile that stretched as far
as your eyes tended to wander
and I should have known
that you couldn’t stay
When we reached a strong, shallow river
I said I’d take your load
but you swore you couldn’t swim
So you headed south
when I waded in
Rosie was eleven years old
she told us, as the overweight bulldog
began to wheeze near her feet
while a television program murmured
in the living room
A tree had fallen on the property line
so now she was all alone
except for old Rosie here
He was driving their big-wheel tractor
with the mower deck running off PTO
maintaining 28 acres on an August afternoon
when suddenly he succumbed
to a massive skull fracture
She warmed the other’s coffees
but she didn’t need both her mugs anymore
so she sent one out with me
‘No more air piano,’ she said
trying her best to smile
As we bid farewell to Rosie
and left them both
with the upright grand we’d come with
Suddenly
there was a shrill sound
cutting through the autumn air
as triumphant as it was discordant
summoning in me an unease
I had not often felt
in the comfort of my father’s home
I rushed to the doorway
and flung the storm wide
to the fire and horror
to the siren sounding louder
to the smoke a mile away
They were flashing over head
a half-dozen at a time
less a swarm than a saber
slicing and buzzing
and bringing bright lights
and I stood like a statue
on the front lawn
of my father’s home
as the roof fell to the foundation
as the colors overcame me
as sulfur filled the air
I dreamed I was a Bangladeshi shipbreaker
toiling in the tropical salt air
with taut muscles and hard callouses
with cuts on hands and shoulders
with burns from oxy-acetylene flames
I worked on the deck of a broken ship
a behemoth with no back half
like a tuna with its tail removed
floating dead in the shallows
in a harbor with a hundred ships like it
on a sandy coast with no end
There were thousands of us working
stretching our rice-fed bodies in the heat
flattening tanks with mallets
taking torch to hull
glancing at the sea a hundred feet below
I was paid in cash each week
enough to buy a bit to eat
and pay for my worker’s flat
a room in a building off the dockyard
where the company provided one bed each
for only two-thirds a month’s wages
My brother died the week before
he was working a few ships down from me
tearing pipe from a plumbing run
pulling copper from rusted conduit
loading pump parts on a limping wagon
I was told it was eleven PM
that a chain had wrapped his ankle
that the other three men faltered
and dropped the bilgepump engine block
off a deck that had no railing
it had long been cut away
We wandered through hard-luck places
exchanging change for bits of candy
at corner stores and chasing them
with peach soda under burned out letters
in the humid summer dusk
We’d found a couple couches
and dragged them in to the garage
so most of us could sit comfortably
as we passed the microphone around
putting stupid jokes to worn-out tape
for posterity
the snack food would run out eventually
and quiet would come just before the birds
with bodies snoring softly on every floor
dreaming of promises and plans
that never came when the morning did
One at a time we would come to
pouring 7 kinds of bowls of ceral
gathering in the living room
kicking children’s toys around
waiting for the van to park outside
I left Surprise the following spring
tying shoes and trying my best
not to forget my coat in the warm
my strap on the old classical
my CD in the system near the television
I never went back
When the memories of me
become harder to find
I hope that you notice
and I hope that you mind
I would look for frogs near rotting stumps
in the summer evenings of my younger days
collecting them in jars for a few hours
until I set them free
or cast them against the pavement
to be fed to baby snapping turtles
else be let in the tank for the corn snake
to have her way, at her leisure
I was a cruel god then,
my subjects kept nourished
with the blood that I saw fit to spill
Woe are the frogs of the summer evenings
of my younger days, flailing in clenched jaws
or stunned and rent to shreds
I was a cruel god then
Frog that I am now,
I pray my god finds mercy.
I.
The air was cement
in the afternoon sun
I counted the stains
on the upholstery
on the backs of chairs
until The Law walked in
I was brighter then
I am warmer now
II.
At Eleven O’Clock
the pain set in
I clutched your thigh
through gritted teeth
I’d heard what you said
I never heard you say a word
III.
The Law was restless
pistol hand on grip
I tried to keep my eyes down
as her visage shook my soul
The air in my throat
grew thicker still
IV.
There were just us three,
two tables and a pistol between
You stood to leave with elegance
as I floundered, chair to floor
I spat your name as the door swung
V.
The Law saw my despair
and her pistol hand was mercy;
She shot me twice
and waited
for the light in my eyes to go out
I sat for perhaps a lifetime
my hands clutching nothing
as I rocked in the perfect black
I found my feet slowly
When finally I could breathe again
and found the pool more slowly still
“Further West, I’d wager,” I whispered
as I eased in to the frigid water feet-first
and filled my lungs with all the air they’d take
In a moment I was submerged
in another I was swimming under sea and stone
It wasn’t long before I saw the sun again.
