This is just a mirror and this is just a desk and this
is just a car crash and this is just a bicycle just as
this is just an exit like Greco-Roman architecture
where you may see someone approaching like a
UFO or a synagogue or a suicide bomber ATTACK
shh don’t fight don’t close your notebook look
the leaves are falling said the blind man while
the columns collapsed and the bluesman strummed
on the sidewalk see we are all dying here we
just know when to lose to let go to buy to sell
to realize that the mountain we made means
that we may never breathe again

I write an evening by the
waterfront with candlelight
Freemasons paving the
boardwalk. In the
morning the newspaper
prints my biography and
I laugh cacophonously.
I stand in my treehouse
and scream a note of
finality. I learn how to
synchronize and mispronounce
waning and soon I
realize.
I have left my voicebox
in my other pants.
Ulysses sang the blues today
but the sirens had more soul.
"So wrap your head in a scarf,"
I say! "Paint your house grey
and your churches red."
Jesus sang the blues today
but the sinners had more heart.
Dare ye burn a cross or
run afoul or sob for the mountain?
Then name yourself an apostle
and head for the hills of your
heaven above.
I sang the blues today
but the liars-
The plane lands with a thunk.
I roll my window shade up.
Sand turns to grain and
rainbows to tornadoes.
I have arrived.
I go to the gun shop and empty
the cash register before it is
too late. My uncle calls from
prison to wish me a happy
Boxing Day. I rent an apartment,
a car, a television, a diploma.
My thoughts are scattered and
my words ring through my head,
but these blues shan't get to
me any longer.
The truth, I decide, is overrated.
I study metaphysics, pataphysics,
and I am going to be sick. Our
hero reads Hopkins and takes
another shot.
Today I stay in bed
and count the cracks
in the ceiling.

And then there was orange, glinting in a pile
from the ground outside my second story window.
I sit and count the scattered papers on my
bedroom floor, thinking, "Maybe someday the
past and present will meet," though I know full-well
that they already have.
Now it is twofold, it is insult to injury, it is
twenty seven eleven.

We are lies, aren't we? We are thankful for
the unknown. My father sips scotch and devours the
truth. I catch my connecting flight and travel back
in time. The man in the blue coat is replaced by
the man in the black hat, the man with the feather
hat, and the man with naught but war paint.
It is like the movies, I decide. I settle on a log bench
and read the classifieds in the newspaper.

Mother and father tell me to count my blessings
as if they are sheep. I tell them that their analogy
is flawed. Morning comes and I tie a string around
my ring finger, proclaiming, "I am here to collect
thanks! Bring out your wish lists and your tattered
diaries!" I am a liar; I am thankful for nothing but
sickness and ink. I write "twenty seven eleven"
three hundred times and vow to make a difference.
I fill my car and my fridge and roller blade up
the mountain, chanting, "Noa! Noa! 'Oia'i'o! A'ole
mahalo nui!" My cries go unheard and I sulk
back down, a landslide for the ages.

I begin to write poetry that oozes pretension and
reflects obsession. I try to pronounce the disease
and instead find myself bound to a table crushed by
feast and fear. I have written "twenty seven eleven"
on my forehead and am forced to listen to the "Lord"s
and "grateful"s and "God"s and I have had enough.

I break free and head for reason.

You say that you wish to be making this call from an
apartment in San Diego but instead you are
making this call from a rental car in Boston and you can't

figure out why. You don't know the meaning of the word
ephemeron, but you don't know who does either. You tell stories
of brutal attacks and high-priced lawyers and being subpoenaed

at the age of 12 for reasons you still don't understand.
You used to hide your big ears behind your sideburns but now you
hide them behind a woolen hat with dark green *****

although it is not cold. You walk alone through the cities,
stopping for nothing and going for something
that you can't quite put your finger on.

You claim to know the words to every song and the
directions to every house, but you have not been alive long enough
to achieve anything quite yet. You have seen a license plate

from every state except Delaware, but the only one that
sticks in your mind is one from Arkansas. You quote the wrong
Shakespeare play and the wrong Vice President and believe that

the only thing you'll ever be is correct. Your calendar
still reads "March" although it is June and tomorrow you will go
to your doctor's appointment instead of your son's

birthday party. You think things that cannot be said but never
remember them. You check into a motel on the 11th and check out on the
19th as if nothing ever happened. Your thoughts read

like a news article about the runner-up in a dog show. You
buy a plane ticket and cancel it at the last minute
because it turns out there ain't nothing for you in Oregon

anymore.

Waking up feels strange,
like you’re coming to in an asteroid belt
or an avalanche. You pour fog
into your morning cereal and every clink of the spoon
against your teeth
seems to have something to say -
a letter, a number, an apology,
something unintelligible.
The bathroom tile on your bare feet is unseasonably cold,
and looking at yourself in the mirror
is like reading Tolstoy in Russian
for the first time. She’s left your drawers
and counters bare.
You hadn’t noticed how colorful her things were
until they weren’t there. She’s taken
her bottles of lotion, the pastel ones and the neon ones
and the one with green and white stripes,
and now everything in the room is white.

The pills go down like pebbles.
The light outside seems either brighter or dimmer
than it should be; you can’t tell which.
Your eyes have been trained to focus on her,
every little curve of her lips and wrinkle in her clothes,
every twitch of her finger as she stirs her coffee,
and now that she’s not there there’s nothing to focus on.

There’s a draft now. You’ve never felt it before.

It’s amazing, how many things
she hasn’t touched. She hasn’t touched
the books on the third shelf,
or the stuffed duck you keep in your bedside cabinet,
or the bottle of nighttime pain relievers you forgot you had
near the fridge.
But looking at those hurts worse
than looking at the things she forgot,
because they’re things that she could have touched,
could be touching right now.
But she isn’t.
You don’t know where she is.

You touch everything for her,
with your left hand,
the hand she squeezed before she got out of the car
and you drove away before you could look back.

You bite off all the nails you’ve been trying to grow out.
You chew at them while you wait
for the shower to warm,
and they’re gone by the time you’re ready to shampoo.
When you step out, you’re bitten by everything
that isn’t there anymore. You wonder
how long you can be occupied by these novelties,
how long you can be intrigued by them
before they start becoming too much.
You think about moving out,
taking only the things you were both indifferent towards,
finding a smaller house
further away from everything.
You think about doing what she did -
packing up all your things into a bag
and getting on the first plane you can,
but something ties you to where you are.

So you stay.
You pull away from everything
and pretend she has left you with nothing.

in c sharp minor you're pulling on your wrinkled shirt,
slight blue pinstripes clawing at your shoulders,
breath escaping your mouth
dolente dolcissimo,
hands slowly buttoning from the top down,
fingertips reading beatific notation
as if each callus could savor it but once.

bandages on your fingertips
cigarette residue on your lips
it tastes like it's two in the morning
and maybe when i say goodnight
we can all stop pretending

so let's not watch the clock now dear
there's so much out in the air to hear
and tonight we can freeze together
and maybe when i say goodbye
god will pluck out his feathers

i've got pills that look like pebbles
i've got hands that look like fire
i've got pictures of every worry we ever had
and it's all right to look at them
every once in a while

but tonight when i say goodnight
i'm going to stop pretending