this friend of mine was never good at smiling in pictures. he tried really hard, but it never worked. all gums, all eyes that didn’t follow suit. he wasn’t great at smiling in real life, either, except when he stopped thinking about it. I saw him smile more than anybody else did, probably, but not enough. and then, like all friends from a home that is dispersing, I had to go. he said I love you by the dam and he meant it like a friend and so did I and that day, before I lost sight of how much he meant it, the sun went down and neither of us smiled with our eyes but we smiled with our mouths and we knew it was all all right.

then I lost sight of how much he meant it and we don’t need to talk about those years, even though we still don’t talk now that they’re gone. I think he grew into his hands and his heart, and I think he found someone who taught him, really taught him, so much better than I ever could, so much better than even he thought that I did, how to smile. I think she loves him more than he meant it when he said it to me, in quality and in quantity of ways. I think he packed my secrets in a box on a shelf in his hometown closet or maybe he dumped them in the recycling bin, and that’s all right, and I’ve found where I feel right too.

and having not seen him in a long time, having not talked in longer, having not hugged him in longer still, having not known him the best or ridden in his passenger seat or punched him in the shoulder, having put so many years between me and my best friend,

the picture that I saw today, the first ever of his smiling eyes

well, the pine-tree fireworks light up better like that. mine did the same.

I. The Flitting



just like me to
be the one to lose my nerve
I don’t even think of you
sipping your coffee and yawning


           his honey-throat spreading imagined hospitality like butter
           on toast—the bard of Royal Street ringing bells of that
           known once and only, that forgotten bard of Montmartre


                                 e, e, e, e,
                                            e, e, e, e, e, d, c, d



I walked up and down and up and down
and up and down, wrought-iron
     balconies and
          hanging plants and
                circus clowns and
              cocktails named
          things like Aviator
and Little Josephine
     in my ribs.



           hurricane season came and went
           the apartment Jacob rented painted
           salmon by the new tenant
           I kept walking
           all I heard was jazz




II. The Splatter



I met a man all the way from Delhi
at the mismatched
butterfly-printed breakfast table.
He said

           “Where are you from?”

and I said a little town near Philly
and he said

           “Where are you going?”

and I said I haven’t got a clue.


He told me they let you
paint the walls with pen strokes
and they never paint it over.


He said to love thy neighbor ‘cause she looks okay
and when they ask what brings you here
to smile and tell them

“Well isn’t that just none of your **** business.”




III. The End



it was
          just
                 like
                      me
                 to be
            the one
         to     lose
      my nerve—





I step off the plane
humming in my best
imitation honey voice
a little drunk on airplane wine



it’s raining here
and I only remember
that one line

new york was first a big empty window-walled apartment
a trundle bed and Victoria
and finding that I can’t love anyone more than I love the
solitary solitary solitary train

next it was hungry circles with a
stranded little man
going too far to get back home

and then the  l - - -  of all our lives
maybe l - - - ing someone more
than peace at eight a.m.
irish cream ale in the evenings and
push-and-pull-and-push

and now it is
westward, higher, hypothetic
thinking where is the balance
between the train tracks and the
sweet sweaty bed

at the end

home is where the
dog died
where the carvings in the walls say
I heart ryan four ever

or it used to be

I could etch the rooftiles of the
abandoned hot dog stand in foil
from blindfolded memory I know these walls

I could drive drunk from 111 to 25
unbury the spare key where
hannah used to live
I could
recite the streets and pebbles between yours and mine

but they say you can’t go home again
you can’t go home again
you can’t go
not again

The bed was warm with the
body of—



Christ!!!


how can you ******* look like that
do what you do
drink all that **** whiskey
kiss your mother with that mouth?


that Jesus abdomen, I’m always forgetting to
sweep the floor, haven’t even been downstairs
in days



the body of a—



Jesus Christ!!!!



can you just
put a shirt on
so I can think straight

All right, dear—
open your steno book and
transcribe every other word:

I, I
                 missed, missed
                                                   you, you.

When I ripped the first bag of chamomile,
distracted tearing packaging,
and on the second water’s boil
and on the bittersweet lemon peel I
threw in on a whim,

and when I cleaned the dishes, not well enough,
your earlobes lodged in my mental faculties,
and when I emptied the soap so you
wouldn’t notice.

I made dinner—don’t write down that I
burned all but the potatoes, dear.

I want you everywhere; transcribe that.

There’s a vase in the cupboard but
let’s keep the flowers on the bed.

“Be careful walking home,” stout Patricia
told us through a mouthful of affogato.
“The wild boar aren’t out much this time of year but
watch for the porcospini,” she snickered
wickedly,
“the porcupines’ll smell the grappa on your lips.”

my head spun in the moonrise,
the Dutch husband having poured glass
after glass after glass after
at first we were consp—hic
conspiring to cover the taste of the mushroom soup
hic—
don’t stand up just yet

eighteen year old legs for ages and a sweet
American peregrina sundress stupor
dizzy for the first time and feeling the
Tuscan drought on my lingua and in my mani

when I tell the story I remember there being
two dogs asleep under the table
but when they tell the story they
insist there was
only one

*e noi non siamo di qui