There are places you exist
in a flowing green dress
that kneads against your body
with every passing breeze
and sand nips at your heels
as you curt by tonned blocks
of cement that smother grass
just off the sidewalk.
They nuzzle киоск stand,
and long to lift self up
to a sea-blue, backdrop dream
that dissolves for years (and years)
and erodes to sewers beneath
with every Charlotte rain
and crumble once again;
a gray-eyed contrast true
of beauty vining through
a city that snuffs roots.

You, and there you go.

I was sitting at the computer
trying to think of a way
to describe a woman's
*** as anything other
than a woman's ***
and there were
marlboro black
cigarettes on my
creaking desk
and I had a fifth
of whiskey on the
windowsill and
I rubbed my forehead
and thought of fruits--
apples and oranges--
no, no that's overdone
and I thought of animals--
elephants and horses--
but, again, no, I'd
come across as one of
those sick ******* that
go to the zoo in  
stained trench coats
and rub themselves against
the chain link
and Eve would walk in
beautiful girl with short
hair and a sharp mind
she'd ask what I was
writing about and
I'd say women
but the women were
never her, she pointed out
and I'd say I don't want to
jinx this, what we have,
you know? and she'd say okay,
okay

I'd get lit up every evening and
I'd text other women
I'd tell them about the shapes
of their ***** and the sizes
of their brains and they'd
usually say uh huh yeah
but I was fishing, always
fishing for that compliment
that sliver of hope, that
unsatisfied wife
when you're trying to be
Bukowski you'll throw
yourself under the bus
again
and
again
for what?
a story, trivial and base,
and that good woman,
that best woman, that Eve,
one day while making breakfast
she'll say to the eggs in the skillet
I can't take this **** anymore
and you'll say so don't
and she'll say fine
and she'll walk out the front door
wearing your t-shirt
you'll feel free for a week
and alone for two years.

Poured into the tight pants,
the grey ones with the zipper
that's afraid of heights, and
guess what? They're really
wrinkled or very wrinkled
or **** wrinkled--but they're
the tight grey ones, assumed
the thighs and calves would
handle the ironing.
Ten minutes late,
usually more. The clock
in the car, the red beat-up
'02 Cavalier, is not behind
or ahead an hour, no it's
set to some vague time
because lateness has
replaced time so why
even worry. Blood pressure, etc.
Spray on the cologne kept
in the car. Could look
up ingredients in cologne
to describe the smell
but that would take
away a little something.
So say: it smells really good
or very good or **** good--
and move on.
Walk inside, unbathed and
sun burnt--well not completely
unbathed. Washed the hair
because it's a puffy, erratic
downer otherwise.
It's all about appearance,
the bosslady said when
she made the hire.
Slipped a little.
Big woop.
Cold called the Southside
Veterinary Clinic.
They'll allow a visit.
Pack it all in the bag,
the mouse pads,
the koozies, the actual
thing to be sold:
SHEENY PUPPY, some
really heavy or very heavy
or **** heavy duty
coat treatment for canines.
The first one is on me, is said
as the package is handed over.
The vet wouldn't buy. Not then.
Probably not ever.
Ate an eighty-calorie bag of cookies.
Drank some coffee.
Stopped at the gas station, the
Conoco on 15th and Kelly,
and couldn't decide between
the fun size or the party size.
This is called the spectrum of grief.
Bought a pack of cigarettes.
Smoked three really quick
or very quick or **** quick,
like Mom might show up any
second and then tossed the pack
and the lighter.
Done with those. Forever.
This time. Or that time.
There was $20.89 in the
checking account and
a fresh girlfriend reminding
that today is one month.
Dinner. Dinner and wine.
$20.89.
You can sell only if you believe in the product.
Be really blunt or very blunt or **** blunt.
Stress is an art.
Create FUD (Fear, uncertainty and doubt).
It’s all about the presentation.
She's fresh and funny and so
self-conscious when she eats
spaghetti. Can't get
by with spaghetti
for the one-month.
No. No. No.
Be on fire and inspiring.
If you don’t know the answer, ask a question.
Answer inquiries concisely and loudly.
Humor is ****.
You can always be better. You can never be worse.
Call Mom, donate plasma or take the Xbox back.
Is this one forever?
Does forever mean dinner and wine
are necessary?
Or does forever mean that
the spectacle is frivolous?
In the cabinet at work
someone left blueberry bagels.
There's a microwave and a tub
of margarine that only
recently expired.

Hayley Fienne scattered herself a year ago today. A hammer. A trigger. I sent flowers to a funeral home in Chandler, OK. I called. Said, "I can't imagine what you are going through" and something about how time turns the past into a form of fiction. DeLillo wrote that, I think.

Her mom said, "That's not true. That's not true."

And I wouldn't have said it if I hadn't known Hayley like I knew Hayley. She used to do these oil paintings on the nights she knew she wasn't going to class in the morning. I've a layman's knowledge of visual art but even I could tell her work was real. As opposed to what? I don't know. You just felt it. It kicked you in the gut, left you spinning around the room, asking every ******* in tweed, "Can I get some water?"

There was one large canvas in particular that stuck out. She called it "Dissolution."

The work depicted a seemingly amorphous spiral of headlight blues and star whites against the murky black of space. In the dead center of the piece she painted the face of a young man, broken into quadrants. The face was nothing more than a faint veil. If you scanned the canvas, you'd miss it.

When she showed the piece at a gallery event, featuring the work of outgoing seniors, I asked her who the man was.

"It's Jesus."

"You gave him a shave."

"It's actual Jesus. It's 'I'm thinking of converting to Buddhism' Jesus. It's lonely, masturbatory Jesus. It's the Jesus who stares at a ceiling fan wondering why Peter won't text him back," she said. "And above all, it's the Jesus God asks a little too much of, the Jesus that calls in sick."

I said I was unaware such a Jesus existed.

"Exists. Dealing with impossible quotas, he has to shave."

"I think your Jesus looks like you."

"He is."



Now it's a year later. I find comfort in the painting, allowing the erratic brush strokes, both fleeing and advancing, to lull me to--what? Just lull, I grant, aimless and asking answerless questions.

I think about her at the end, at her end-- but not the violence of it all. No, I think of the release.

No intended romance. I simply wonder how she would have wanted that final let-go in life's calendar marked by letting-goes to wrap. I imagine her body separating from her mind, her mind separating from her memories, her memories separating from her name. I think of her matter fractured and dispersed, directed where the universe, in its imperialistic expanse, requires.

I call her mom. Say, "I can't believe it's been a year" and something about how outer space makes me think of Hayley.

Her mom says, "I don't understand."



After I hang up I look at the painting. I look at Hayley's Jesus. And I think in memories, memories that may or may not have happened, I think of them in my chest--not my head. I think about mercy. I think about the infinite. And is there a place where they intersect?

When I lived in the city, night, true night, never came.
The natural day gave way to the artificial day,
a day made possible by streetlight, by humming billboard.
With sick pinks and near-white greys, the early hours
hiccuped away. I slept or didn't. And this time in my life,
as any time in my life, is marked by a woman.

I won't say much about her. She was a performer,
and I've never been a steady fan of much of anything.
So when I kissed her the last time, I kissed her like it
was the last time, a kiss calibrated to say, "It's been."
When she kissed me the last time, she kissed me
like she didn't know it was the last time,
a kiss not so much a kiss as a mouth half-opened eternity,
where the sun didn't shine, nor was there night.

His navy blue sports coat with brass buttons appeared to have been folded, again and again, as if to create ornate origami then unfolded to wear every Tuesday and Friday at his job at the Xerox call center in Colorado Springs. He kept his small, stubby fingers in his pockets, uncapping and recapping pens or fiddling with keys. As he passed by co-workers, adjusting his body to make adequate room in the narrow path between spines of cubicles, he would nod and say an almost audible hello. This was difficult for him, but he was trying something he'd read in a self-help book called Going Up.

And go up he had, ever so marginally. But up still. Despite his translucent blonde mustache, which was quite thick but only visible at a certain angle, under a discriminating light, despite his wrinkled clothes, despite the tight, Brillo pad, curly mess of hair atop his head, he'd stepped up from customer service representative to quality specialist, much to the yawning disbelief of his former spinemates.

Craig didn't have a girlfriend, but he had an ex, and, though he tried to never bring her up when talking with a woman in the break room, usually Kaley or Jewelz (spelled that way on her name badge), he did, nearly every time. He didn't know if this was an attempt to relate a yes, I've seen a woman naked in real life--so or evidence that he had, at least at one point, value.

He and twelve other quality specialists shared an office on the east side of the center. In each call he screened he made sure the customer service representative demonstrated the Three Cs: Courtesy, Commit, and Close. He no longer had to hand deliver critiques to reps because H.R. deemed it a liability risk with all the death threats he received. Instead, he sent out emails with no mention of his name. They read something like this:

Dear Customer Service Representative 216442,

Upon review of call number 100043212, which took place on 03/12/12, the Quality department noticed that while you did a super job of being courteous (great use of customer's name!) and closing (we love that you didn't just say, "Thank you for being a Xerox customer, etc., etc.," but instead said, "At Xerox it's our absolute pleasure to serve you." How true! We love that in quality), we noticed you over committed in your commitment statement. During the call, you tell the customer, "I'll have that problem fixed for you in no time." While that is ideal, there are situations in which you will not be able to solve the customer's problem. So instead of saying with certainty that you will have a solution, say, "Let me review your account and see what OPTIONS we have for you today." This tells the customer that you are concerned, yet you do not promise that which you cannot deliver.

Quality Control Team
CS Springs

Craig quit smoking two or three times a week, a hundred or 150 times a year. At 26, he woke up to wake up; he worked to work, to say yes, I have a job, to say yes, it's unbelievable how much of my money Uncle Sam gets, to say, I'm saving for a car or a new place or a full-size bed; he went to the bar after work on Thursdays and Saturdays to go to the bar on Thursdays and Saturdays; he'd say hello to say hello. Today was tomorrow is yesterday.

At the foot of Ute Valley park he lived in a home not all that different from where your mother sleeps, a white split-level with charcoal shutters and a two-car garage--though Craig slept where your mother would not: in the unfinished basement, for the home was not his but his brother's. His brother had a nice wife and a nice three-year-old boy, and they ate pizza on Wednesdays, went to the park, weather permitting, every day after supper for a nice time.

Craig observed this more than participated. He'd listen to blocks fall, his brother stepping on action figures, his brother's wife cooking--all from underneath them. As the floorboards creaked he committed each cohabitant's gait to memory. He vultured deli meat and low-fat slices of cheese out of the fridge when no one was in the kitchen.  

At night he'd drink a bottle of his ex-girlfriend's favorite wine, just to watch it go empty. He'd fall asleep on top of the covers and dream, not without some anguish, **** dreams of her.

Mom shot Jake's cat
with the screen door open,
with dirtied snow covering the
gravel drive. And Jake, bless
his little soul, watched from
the door frame as Dad took
over, snagging the bloodied
mess by the tail and dumping
it in the waiting grave. Mom
told Jake that's the way it is
as she opened the .410's ejection
port and deposited the shell into
her hand. She gave it to him.
A memento. Jake didn't know this
word at the time but years later,
four to be exact, he'd look up
memento for a spelling test,
and think of Dad piling loose dirt,
tiny sticks, and snow on the cat
while he, Jake, stared at the
discharged shotgun shell,
still warm in his hand.