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
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
but lowly blob what
if the acidity eats ‘way at
your cellular walls?
i am re-acclimating to a bigger pool
and death is the ante
with alien beings
oh my god
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
while standing in
the shade a strong
hand took you
and although
i would share
a million sunlit
hours with you
at that moment
i was so weak
i could not even
look your way
i ran
and i ran
and felt remorseful
but never did i cry
which is just what weak men do
—
standing in the doorway
with the light bouncing
off kitchen linoleum
i lock eyes with Lal
it’s an eerily quiet
afternoon in wichita
i turn as i smell
a hint of freedom
in the air
i spend a moment with
what is left of you
inside me
it’s an awkward moment
because i am ashamed
and i finally cry
for you
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
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
the shower’s a warm blanket
but the cold lives in my spine
if only i could see
then i wouldn’t be so blind
tell me i’m not fine
tell me not to cry
the president’s a virus
and my family is the host
they pull all of their pants down
to get lashed by the holy ghost
castigate my mind
tell me that i lie
my father is a rapist
and my mother cries all day
the sun dances in the window
but has nothing much to say
i’m starting to unwind
i’ve nothing but the time
let up
lift off
be wary those that are born
into this prison
and straighten your spine
and look forward
for all eyes belong
to the great gods of hell
who filled walls
with your dead brethren
and covered them in
the faces of their family
eat love and pray
under their holiness, I say
although
it may pick at your soul
to do so
the sun will shine on
endlessly
but men can
block your view.
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
a summer dream
we speak of love
in birdsong
do not poison
the air with your
“sentences”
do not focus your
“attention”
i would work a lifetime
for 5 minutes more
with her
“You’ve come so far,” you whispered
as you wrapped me in warm arms
robbing all my breath from me
“You know I can’t come with you.”
I felt you say in to my chest,
my arms finally overlapping yours
“I swear you’ll see me again.”
you crackled, tightening your hold
even as you began to fade away
You took the light when you left;
With hands and knees I found the cave floor
and laid my tears there in the darkness
walking in circles picking off dead skin
trying to stay alive
we ask big questions of ourselves
like what do i WANT?
until we forget how the sun feels
and why we need it.
inspire my
pencil fingers
to trace your
crooked spine
write stories that
never resolve
that we both hate them
should be enough
lay ruin to topsoil
dig for something
underneath
that never
All the money in your pocket
for a brand new ’79 Ford truck
with custom ordered everything
with a radio that wails
nearly as loud as the gasoline motor
burning rubber beneath a Carolina moon
You’ve been drinking a little
and so has the man to your left
but you get home safe regardless
and didn’t hurt that truck of yours
as it sits rusting in the driveway
just like it has
For decades
It’s 2017
and you haven’t seen your oldest son in 4 years
Billy lost his thirties
To hard drugs and cheap booze
And a wife that didn’t love him
He lost his money because
He couldn’t stop himself
When the crack-pipe came around
And besides, the boys on Cork street
Always treated him right
Billy lost his stride to gas station food
And he lost swagger to head trauma
He even lost his luck on pawn
And now he’ll lose his forties
To the tumor that’s growing
In the roof of his mouth
But he’ll never lose that look in his eye,
not that horrible broken one.
Not til the day he dies.
I would knock you over
before your new soft skin
ever touched the fire
I would let you slide
when you needed to
even if I hated it
Instead of snapping back
or head-butting
I would take more hits
more stoically,
I would take your lashing
with much more grace
But later when your skin was tough
I’d let you take your scrapes head-on
without an unsolicited word,
with all the fury of a desert storm
Fury there would be
And I would hope and wish and dream
that when a cold-front came in
you would thrash beyond it’s milding
You would burn bright forever
and sometimes I would light my torch with yours
If I could make time travel backwards
and make you whole and even
I’d give you everything I could.
Everything.
It’s the cough that kills me.
‘Too warm for this.’ I think
to myself out loud as the shiver
sets deep in to my bones
– just for a moment –
as the crickets chirp
just outside my window.
This old blanket serves
just as good as new
for to swaddle me up
and keep me warm in this
65-degree-Fahrenheit night
And I lay awake wheezing
and wiping clear snot
on to the back of my hand
until it’s saturated enough
to flail to find my kerchief
– an old cotton T-shirt
that I’d already worn.
The chirping seems to swell
with the unconscious chatter
of my arms and guts – and
everything, as far as I
can tell – and it would
fade again, I’m sure,
if not for this headache.
‘Ain’t it just the way?’
I yell to the uncaring crickets,
‘Sore throat in the middle
of Goddamn June!’
It’s the cough, though,
the stupid fucking cough,
that gets me every time.
