In 1957, a respected BBC news program
aired footage of Swiss peasants harvesting spaghetti
from trees. No, not the squash– the noodle.
The BBC phone lines were burdened with calls,
viewers from all over wanted to know how
to get hands on their own spaghetti tree.
A successful April Fool’s joke.
A nation laughed at its gullibility.

Not too many years ago, a coworker’s whole office
was foiled. As in everything from his desk,
computer, pictures on the wall, his globe,
down to individual pens were wrapped
in aluminum foil like Sunday’s leftovers.
Cleanup was tedious
but he laughed the whole time.
This is April Fool’s, after all.

A good friend once–and only once–
printed up very believable medical lab reports.
He led his girlfriend to believe he was dying of cancer.
When she burst into tears, he burst into laughter.
She didn’t stay mad for long,
can now laugh at such a convincing prank.
It’s April Fool’s, after all.

I told you I still love you.
You laughed and I followed your lead.
My love is such a funny punchline
but this is not the joke we wish it was.
The most random of memories of you
on the most random of days can still make me cry.
I am still in love with you.
I am just a fool in April.
The only joke here.

My voice
enters
the air
as I speak
to her,
delves
there
in purrs
of wind.

If I am
silent,
and she
is sleeping,
the air
stutters
a little
as it speaks
its own name.

In the
language
that sails
the lung,
it whispers
about her.

In the
night,
the air
grasps
at cigarette
smoke
with
fingers
small
as a
hush.

It lurches
toward
the branch
of moon.
My father's
grave
is hidden
in the air.

The air,
the air
hangs
between us,
lithe and
endless,
almost
invisible.

When she
pauses for
breath,
the air
offers itself
in sweet
bursts.

In mist
and fog,
it learns
to kiss.

When she
speaks,
the air
is filigree,
like the
small laces
of a tree
in bloom.

Ultraviolet in piercing places,
lips and lungs and tongues and
tummies
under light gray tide-taut moonlight,
under neon’d open windows;

sudden deep-breaths, underwater—
where I can’t swim, six fathoms deep,
there, eight-armed squid and bottom-feeders
lay their eggs and send out signals—

I sink—lead-head—to the sea floor,
towards the lava, I hit heat vents,
and I feel everything inside you,
I hear gasping—I feel hidden—

I know everything about you,
each college story, soul permission—
a geyser bubbles out from inside—
an ocean stitched from skin and marrow—

one body could not hold it in,
one of us against a sea-wall?
One boy alone would not go swimming—
but both of us could drown together.

And back in bed, above the covers
inside a cloud of skin-sweet hormones,
pink and red, we now tread water—
I touch your chest, I vow to sink.

Fly home, to the bittersweet,
to the mill pond with the fuzzy water—
that thick green ****—or "scuzz" as you called it—
where the bullheads hid—
a can of corn could catch them;

I saw ghosts across in the cemetery—
visiting graves with their cold white orchids
and speaking of life like it passed already
on the old freight train that sometimes
crossed those bridges;

somewhere beyond, an old Native died—
at the end of his trail, not a song left to sing,
though now of course, he’s immortal, in bronze,
in his saddest pose,
on his darkest day;

in the center of town are the great prison walls,
a limestone reminder of who we are not,
and who, if we hated our gods, could become
in the blink of an eye—
in the absence of love;

and home is the smallest house on the street
near where our mothers made parts for the War,
and if I get the time, I ought to visit that place,
to fish in the pond—
and catch up with old ghosts.

and just how far have you gone for the sake of your "camaraderie," my friend?

their half-glow hearts and prejudiced minds could have swallowed you whole,

or abandoned you, wit be-******, and genius be-******, you
might have died a pauper—

I hear they’d **** a man much more guarded than you, they might string him up,

tie his broken body to a fencepost, leave him ******,

satisfy a tyranny under the watchful eye of a loving God,

trade a boy in Laramie for a jet-black brutal odium,

**** a kid and wonder what his mother did to steer him wrong—

but still you wrote of calamus and of holding hands and handsome lovers,

still you gave us songs to sing back to our lovers, gentle songs,

despite the shame and censorship they cursed you with, despite

the threat that everything could be undone, despite the scripture,

well I must say, dear Good Gray Poet, before I fold my hand,

thank you, Walt, for giving us what you never had.