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.

after Jacob Collier

you told me there’s a patch of sunlight in your room
where I held you for a moment. 

you can see it so clearly. 
tell me, what moment was it?
the day I folded your laundry that littered the floor? or
right before my harley davidson boot fell apart at the soles? or
after we wandered the woods and promised one another we would
let it flow?

or is this patch of sunlight you speak of, just
every part of our love reflected off your windows
onto the carpet of your room
where I held you
for a moment?

There are times 
when my brain 
jumbles across a page 
fumbles over words 
scrambles them into a pile
a magnitude of more 
then less and then more again
scribbles, against scratches 
noise amongst the static 
constant whispering veiled 
an overlay into the background 
a clock ticking that no one hears
except for me in quieter places
then there’s the music 
always the playlist of my life 
shifting to the forefront 
and I can’t ever find my pencil 
when I need it most.

i will become
the sunlight

just beneath
your
horizon

    &

you will become 
purple dances

across my
infinite
sky
    
    &

we will
welcome
the moon

together
  

nearby a creek babbles, laughing like a child
one with cherry red cherub cheeks
humor doused in doses of naiveté

i’m reminded of myself here—
freckled like a forest floor,
a honeysuckle-sweet streak

faithful as little ones nestled neatly beneath a fig tree
mosquitoes form a halo above a tangled brown mess of hair
newborn legs tremble like leaves in wind

nowadays my heart is royal
though at times the flesh forgets,
lost as morning light filters through leaf canopies
dappled like a fawn’s soft speckled fleece

with that flat expanse of dusty fields,
the shaggy business strips,
and brusque Midwestern replies
made me wish for a valley to hide in.

My ears clamored to hear
the saccharine politeness of shop owners,
not honest and cool indifference.
Buy it or not, they don’t care.
They don’t know your momma.

But oh that sky –
I never tire of the sky –
the blast of light across the soybeans
as the storm runs down to the river,
or the fog hanging in the morning
like a misplaced cloud.
The hot bright blue of july
not obscured by any mountain.
The night stars answered
by fireflies below.

After 15 years we get some greetings,
Some nods to our son, born here.
The small town doesn’t fully trust,
but welcomes us on the edges,
we are still in the trial period. 

I kind of like Ohio.