planted by a friend, absent—
in his place I tended it. But it lacked
dirt and water. Shovels full from here
to there, so little to fill the holes
around the plants. And water, hose
stretched from the outside faucet
of my grandmother’s house,
to ease parched blooms and one broken
stem and blossom. “Maybe it will root,”
someone said, among the watching
brothers. I found a pot
and planted it.
underwrung and ladderhigh
if i had another puff
or had forgotten
all about dragons.
but i’m not so sure
they ever did exist
if they did they’d’ve
taught us to fly-
in wingspans
measured in miles
in featherfalls of flight
with fingertips spread
over piles of earthless night
interested in the nameless ones
(at the bottom of the sea)
The clatter of the silverware
is wind chimes over
sparrowing laughter—four
women in hijab chitter
about tomorrow’s matching
tattoos. This blood fills koi
up in the pond, scales thrilled
to gape water for bread
in the reeds by the dockside
restaurant, where the dapper
Kevin waits on the ladies
overeagerly,
stating, “We also have
a chocolate bar compliments
of the house with a bourbon
infused set of bacon buns.”
The waiter expects
the flapping trill of
charm and azure sky upon him
and all of the chatter
falls to craning necks,
bent wings, eerie silence
in the trees crowding
the table, one moving to say:
“Well, I do have some tape. It’s blue.”
I’ve been playing operation with rejection.
All the bones collect in my throat and I
spend my time carefully picking up.
I tweeze so gently–
the buzzing almost never gets me.
I’ve practiced my life away.
A clown on the table, still
the embarrassed red nosed reindeer.
I pat at the gaping holes and tell myself
Rudolph was a story about the chosen.
I’ve been hole punched by all of this.
My heart was only ever as strong as paper
mache, a few layers.
We cut me up for aesthetics at Christmas
to save on paper and I guess
the snow was worth it.
All my gift wrap has turned into cold poems.
Snowballs roaming to be bagged,
melting down into muted tear
and bone throat. I’m so still–
knowing all the ways you taught
me to be careful with touching
too much.
How to strengthen your grip on a story,
How to lift, how to win.
Joey’s liver wrecked from whiskey & brew,
$219 a week & he can’t swing all of it.
We talk jazz & the blues, best Chicago
Deep Dish & I know it won’t be long.
If our past has its own scale it’s bebop
harmonic minor with a chromatic switch
at the end. I cheer when Hendrix pours
lighter fluid on his Strat but not Joey. He’s far gone
on Dizzy, Thelonious & Duke. I conjure
the funeral he’ll never be given, envision
spinning Miles for him—Bitch’s Brew
& Green in Blue. Vinyl scratches linger
on the top of a slow tune. He jabbers
about scent & taste & I sit with him like kin.
His sister’s anger interrupts like aquifer
under bedrock. I get why she turned on him—
his wild blood scorched her—but I’m not as close.
Pick me up a Rueben, a few smokes? he asks.
End stage liver failure means a few bites
a day. Hallucinations gather at his bed & he’s back
on the sax. There’s a woman & he’s cashing in
at 2 am. I offer a bite of a loaded baked potato
as Joey praises the hot melt of the butter,
the crumbly white meat, rough golden-brown
of the skin. He calls it dirty, sweet, gritty.
Eyes close a final time & he drifts out of his body
while Miles’ gleaming trumpet blares.
For every day away,
the weight of waiting weighing us down.
The shame I have for being off guard.
I’m sorry, Darling.
You, deserving the world,
I, in shambles.
You, inspiring.
I, a lucky witness.
But we believe.
We see it in our eyes.
Yours: sweet serenity, so sincere, a barrier of fear.
Mine: A telling blue, that yearns to hold you near.
We feel it with our skin collision escapades.
When your lips latch to mine so softly,
Just like the time you coaxed me out
and I said “it” so soon.
Just like the times when the tears leave my eyes,
hearing your songs a foot away.
I meant it all.
Every touch.
Every kiss.
Every hope.
Every wish just to help you.
To have you in my arms,
to keep you safe from harm,
to let you know you’re always seen,
deserving of the sweetness
that dreamers always dream.
Yes, of course it feels obscene,
But wouldn’t living a dream?
I don’t need a compass to show me where I’m going.
Your arms feel like home.
Your arms, they are home.
*after Constantine P. Cavafy
When the train slows, a boy scans ghost-filled dimness, slingshot ready in hand.
