1

         do you remember the first death?

unlooked for
     when we are
unprepared, have no reason to wonder
what death will mean to anyone
         and the gripping power of grief

(or, the guilt, if you have no particular
              feelings of grief, at all)

2

         and the spring rain

as it washes the brownness of winter
     from the yard and into
the street, the gutter running with
          snow melt
the boys plugging the storm sewer
to make a pond in the dead end circle

          where they still play

Lisa Nelle
had two names
like a pornstar.

She'd put her makeup on and stick all this blackness on
under her eyes
like she was holding night
in bags.

We watched Hey Arnold! DVDs at five in the morning,
and smoked the whole place up.

Sometimes her and Alexis would go in the back room.

Alexis never liked me.

Lisa Nelle had this way of looking at you
where she'd take her eyes
and she'd work her way
down to your stomach.

She could find a star in my intestines,
a dwarf light could warble in my stomach
and she'd see it through my belly button.

She'd pull it out
wings and all
and tell me
that Khalil knew the answers.

Out of this two-ton purse she carried around,
she'd whip out a compilation of Khalil Gibran.

One time she told me how her father
used to pull her hair
and thighs.

She didn't say anything about it again.

When we tripped shrooms,
she took my hands and put them on her neck
and asked me to feel for the nebulas
underneath her skin.

When I read
some of the stuff you send me,
the emails,
texts
or poems,
I can't help but wonder how many words
I now know as a result of you
that I wouldn't know
if I hadn't been looking
around for bud
and someone I knew
that
knew you.

I'm sorry Lisa Nelle,
that things didn't work out with you and Alexis
when they did
with you
and
Sabrosa.

Sometimes I hate myself too.

My hands look old.
I don't know what happened to their previous beings,
their soft, pale, younger selves.
My hands are cracked from the dry humorless days of anticipation.
I have hangnails, my skin so dry it's splitting from itself.
And they shake.
They shake along with my voice and my thoughts.
Trembling with excitement and worry.
When you're in the room,
especially when you're not, though.

I have stretch marks.
On my inner thighs, and on my sides,
they remind me of roads, of maps, of going places.
Each goosebump is a hillside,
each little crack in my dry skin is a riverbed, waiting for rain.
My body is a terrain of  imperfections,
and I'm just trying to keep still enough
as to not disturb the world that I harvest.

The snow has a way of making everything look so god-**** beautiful
I think because it covers up everything
*****
everything grey
So come lie down here with me baby
We'll let the snow wipe it all away
There's a numb before death
hypothermia
this peace I hear
euphoria and you slip away
what could be better?
Come lay here next to me?
Your'e always saying how your lung's are on fire
So come sit in the cold with me
We're in heaven if you try not to move darling
We can pretend we're laying on clouds
And sure its cold now
But nothing beautiful was ever
free
Not in death nor dignity

So we lay in a field of white
And watched the angels throw down peices their forgiving
wings from the sky
As it touched our faces and melted
But you got up and walked away from me
Left me in a field of minus thirty degrees
In a place between life and death
I will always be waiting for you
Paralysed between sheets of white
To warm my shaking hands
My trembling heart
that
    no
       longer
              beats
                    for
                         you

You always were the drowning type

The Zen master
addressed the gathered group
and said,
"You don't know anything."
and one of the students replied,
"What do you mean,
we don't know anything?"
and the master
was silent
and appeared puzzled,
so I now know
what the master means
by not knowing anything,
because at any given moment
I don't know a thing
and knowing for sure
is so difficult
that nobody probably does
know anything,
but I can also understand
the student's response,
because of course,
I know all about
this here and now,
or so I think,
so like me right now,
the master was silent
and puzzled,
because probably
he knew nothing.

Allan keeps forgetting that his knees are sacred
There is not always solace granted from the bodies he prays to
Neck craned howls for love
Some deity’s fingers running through his hair

Allen is not good looking
And he forgets that no one ever hated a man
Who wanted good things for other people
Forgets that true beauty lies in the hands
And is seen by what they do

Your hands are beautiful
She said,

They can buy someone coffee
When it’s cold
They can make people warm

They do more than his mouth can

They speak languages
Entire languages

In the 7th grade
Christy Turtch slapped him once
For making eyes at another girl
It made his face warm with pain
His eyes wet
Allan bought her flowers
Glued googly eyes to the petals
Gave her a note
See. Only ever had eyes for you.

What Allan doesn’t know yet
Is that to get into heaven
Peter checks knees for scars
Checks hands for beauty
Checks eyes for everything else

Allan’s knees look like the moon
From the ways that he prays
Spotty gravel craters
Dimpled with the fear of
Maybe I won’t feel so lonely this time

His hands can hold someone’s head
His own head
Can make someone fall asleep with them
Can hold them so tight
It keeps them from leaving

Allan keeps forgetting

He pushes against the ground to stand
Brushes himself off
Wipes his eyes
And smiles
He forgets