Fuse
lunchtime siren howls
barking dog signals alarm
become the same beast
Oh old friend-
I know your sister is missing you.
your birthday was yesterday,
another year has passed without you.
I have known you both
for nearly 40 years, you were dear to her
and so you are to me.
Not really my friend,
only tangentially, but I kept tabs-
no longer the annoying little brother.
Edgy, tattooed, smiling on your motorcycle,
or posing on a roof,
or strumming your guitar,
smiling down at your daughter.
I took a walk after the storms tonight
the fireflies went nuts
answering the fading flashes.
I imagined you were with me-
“call them lightening bugs!
They are having a party!”
Your dark brown eyes,
your expansive smile,
your big heart, they were all with me.
I thought you might like
the cautious calves,
the frogs singing,
the silly cats following.
You would have taken a picture for your sister.
You would have written a song for your daughter.
Tomorrow is the first June 9th
since 1957 that he will wake up
without her on their anniversary.
I will never know how that feels.
He will only have the memories.
KW
6/8/2022
after
a
dark
week
then
sprouts
the
seed
leaf,
then
it is
an
exponential
creeper,
reaching,
daily
seeking,
sends
spindly
shoots
in search
of soil to
root,
an
anchor
point
from
which
will
spring
another
virile
stalk
with
shady
finger
leaves,
and
with
luck,
flowers
soon
to
swell,
hidden
from the
summer
heat beneath
the viny canopy until late
August or even mid-September
when the rains have ended and we go
early in the morning, when the red flesh is
sweetest, to rummage through the labyrinth
of weeds grown up around our patch poorly
tended, still in hopes to find some lumps of
earth turned via dna into pregnant orbs of
deliciousness; pluck our thumbs on their
white underbellies, study close the
quality of that dull thud to see
if we have any melons
ripe for plucking.
The scent of spent rain
brought me outside
barefoot to the pavement
steamy and still hot
The flitter float skippers
kiss the afternoon downpour
grateful for the sun and
pavement pools
bouncing back bapitised
at 37 miles per hour
renewed, born again
praise be
we ride the high side,
legs swinging in the spray from Lake Michigan,
pretending we’re essential crew members,
and I am unafraid
next to your confidence
that the sailboat will safely reach tonight’s dock
before sunset–
when we’ll spread the sleeping bag on the bow,
too tired to stargaze,
too in love with the adventure to consider
that lying on such a convex surface
might give us the sensation that we are slipping
away from each other,
but at dawn we’ll rouse clinging to one another,
dew-soaked and unregretful
The closest I can get to the ocean,
right now,
is the cool patter
I was always jealous
of those kids
from the stolen movies
given to me on VHS
with meticulous handwriting
by a woman named Rose
who had a massive dish
that had more channels
than three, eight, and eleven
the scens I loved most
had massive pizza boxes
dungeons and dragons
smoke from a overworked mother
during a hot summer evening
where their lives would change
forever
raised as an only child
by two people
that had ran
the gauntlet
seven
kids
already
there wasn’t hope
for that wild screaming night
friends and adventure
just these moments
sitting politely
in some old woman’s house
listening in how thier friends
all died from the flu
just last week
sometimes
my grandfather and I
would spend our weeknights
competing with one another
during an episode of Jeopardy
but it was quiet and controlled
sitting in my basement now
with a table full
of my own children
their fists full of dice
knowing that my other
children are upstairs
doing whatever they pleased
two pizza boxes
gutted by puberty and abandon
I realized I made it
it just took a lot
hulled me out
broke me to pieces
killed the shine
that I had to share
but
my
god
was it ever
worth the trip
for once this cat recognizes their reflection
(you know they say only self-aware animals do that)
(you know they used to whine
about teen girls who had nothing
better
to do than celebrate that they didn’t hate themselves)
with the glamor of
nakedness
and brushed hair
and sugary depression fat.
but if i am in the mirror then
who is in me?
normally,
just some wreckéd witch looking
for proof that she can’t fail her body if she is that
corporeal corpse, corpus
core and cored
definitely/defiantly,
not just a cicada casing
who would mistreat the meat its forebears bore it
nor just the wisp who bored free from its forsaken flesh.
suddenly,
an animal of both,
a smile not torn sunder out a soul.
