It was neither stoic nor brave what you did holding your tongue while the parade of homicidal cells stomped pancreatically ever on
pan kreas. all flesh.
I want the grocery store on a cloudy Sunday around 2.
that's all, you’d say and something like complaint rising up through the mass,
about the bad day you need more than I do
I thought it was huge chunks of torched bridge cinder protecting me
but you were the signal bloom that stopped tanks in their tracks
before they got close enough to fire.
you’re a heater full blast when the ice turns black,
lipstick & smoke & juicy fruit gum
cordovan leather trench coat belted at the waist
belted in the face by Muhammad Ali
when you finally told me
you should have all my things
I’ll take the stone-washed bikini in the leatherette box
tiny kapow! accents. Tiered with bougainvillea powders and creams,
clip on things, plastic brooches and tangled chains.
I’ll croodle Conway Twitty with your girlfriends,
dressed like curtains for your casket,
(not the top model, but fancy)
I’ll have another Saturday with
Fritz the Nite Owl, Flippo the Clown
Big Chuck and Lil’ John
flipping for triple features ‘til dawn. You’ll be high
and I: cranked on midnight Frostys.
Do you have that dirty green creek with the rope swing to give?
Catfish and snapping turtle
cleaned, salted, dredged and fried.
crispy drive thru chicken livers
with one proud and greasy heart we fuss over like a Cracker Jack prize?
Every bow-legged uncle who sprouts from Cuban heels,
suits not tight in the right way,
distended bellies blocking their view as they bow their heads in prayer?
I’ll take their dull misery and roll it up in that wall to wall cookie monster shag.
Surely one of the cousins will help load the Zenith hi-fi stereo console into your truck
which I will take too, thank you,
and drive until the power steering goes out one day
on the way,
having declared
fully justified--
sanctified even
that after 10 good years, it was time for a drink.
I’m at the casket but the tears won’t come
shouldn'ta grabbed you by the shoulders though,
that was the wrong thing to do. It wasn’t you and
I wasn’t falling.
Are you for real dead?
was one dumb question
Well. shit, mom came right out unrehearsed
your breath smells like coffee and train smoke most days
so you’re probably better off, right?
the operating surgeon thought so anyway.
washing dishes, driving to work, walking the dogs forever
in my stomach something of you ignites and surges in strength
spreads to my windpipe and chokes the air to live.
maybe the tide recedes
and the street names change,
asphalt upturned by new growth, semis stop singing,
stop whining, stop drinking, stop dreaming of
I-75 fractured by pine and deciduous trees flashing victory leaves,
the secret meadows within you don’t need you
to survive.
On state routes that creep through
the shitty backwaters where you practiced manufacturing me
men smile in their sleep
and each expectant mother receives a single white kitten from the mayor slash chief of police,
I pump and pump the pedals of my nephew’s baby blue 10 speed
toward my sister’s porch light at the top of the hill where we have all re-gathered to say goodbye, take off the ties and shed the remnants of church.
Riding at night on a borrowed bike to escape cut rate narrators getting sloppy on pills and past tense
behold the halogen wash and high pitch whine of a diesel downshifting
edging me toward the shoulder so close to the deep ravine
I hold out my hand (even though I am spoken for)
having just as much a chance of pulling the sky
into the hollow below me, where I’m pitched when the truck clips my wheel.
my descent is checked by bush-hogged saplings,
one of which punctures my thigh.I could think then, barely
(I would think later-- I was cruci-thighed!)
lying in winter stubble
blood blossom on my jeans, I thought for a good second before I passed out,
mom’s gonna light my ass up
for riding after dark.
