I don't know what he was to others—
   fireworks, lemonade, ants crawling on a picnic blanket—
   but I always knew him at his worst.
He was sleep cycles shaped like carnival pretzels,
   days that bled together,
weeks that clumped like a rat king
   under floorboards in the beach house.
He spoke in clouds
   swollen with diluvian rain,
daggers of lightning
   cracking the river in half,
the language of a muggy body in sticky room
   staring out a window
at absolutely nothing.
   The sort of stuff that makes me think
he didn't know his own strength,
   most of the time.

As always, when he died this year
   he died by degrees,
bedridden in the hospice of September.
   I listened to his death rattle
 of rustling yellow leaves
   and watched the last of the fireflies
crawl from between his parted lips.
   When he went cold for good
I built a pyre out of his firewood bones.
   The ashes fell into the soil
like seeds in waiting, and I watched
   the moon grow so large that it stretched
the nighttime like candy licorice
   and made it longer than before.
My duty done, I turned to go.
   The smoke rose up to embrace the sky,
and at the time, I could have sworn
  that from the corner of my eye
I saw it curl around
   and wave at me.

About the time that the skin around his eyes
and behind his ears matches the evening sky
(black and blue, ****** pockets of purple),
a nurse asks me what happened and I tell her,
against white walls, and over a pile of bruised meat,
and beneath the phantom of a prognosis that includes
the words "injury" and "traumatic" and "brain" which seeped into
the atmosphere hours, but that doesn't make any sense,
because just seconds ago we were drinking
from cheap bottles, the color of honey or flypaper
depending on the place, we had black comedy
smeared across our faces like thick shadows under lamp lights,
we were stumbling across a road together
through the city's living darkness and we were twelve
and we were twenty-four and we were forty-five
all at once and that doesn't make any sense, but it's true.
A nurse asks me what happened and I tell her. But
I leave out the flashbang between the parenthesis,
the part where given the choice
between grabbing him or saving myself,
space and time come undone in the headlights of a truck
and I'm back on the sidewalk before you can say
"self-preservation."
The nurse tells me it was lucky I was there,
and a little clear fluid leaks out of his nose in tacit agreement.

I buy a role.
Cinema verite.
But think much bigger and more grand in scale and style.
Costs me seven dollars or eight.
I'll be moving up from time to time in time.
There are packs you can buy where all the joints are different colors.
And I smoke them all or someone else does in moonlight, perhaps.
Mostly I smoke one of three:
American Spirit Blacks;
Camel Turkish Royals;
Marlboro 27s.
That sorta sums me up.
I'm in love with all the world, through the look of a ring of smoke;
Or a wavy line rising disappearing to the sky.
If I turn 28 years old I'll thank the Lord aloud.
And kiss his hollowed ground.
And change some things around.
And make some lovely sounds.
And shoot some lovely scenes.
And star for who to see.
For you there is a me.
Yes you, every lady.
And every sweet young supple girl,
Who is ready for the world;
I will be your man,
And I'll show you all I can,
And when you've seen enough,
I'll lay you down for love,
And we'll go deeper then the rest,
We'll plant new foreign lands.
And start humanity there.
And we will watch it grow...

Worlds never been discovered.
Our spaceship's under covers.
But soon it will be built.
And then we will lift off.
Not knowing we are safe,
But knowing we are great.
And trusting all around;
The people who got us off the ground.
We'll sail and leave the Earth behind;
And first stop will be the Moon.
And that's all I can write about that right now.
Wouldn't want to spoil a thing.
Not you.
Not even the ending of a movie.
Like when I open up my pack of Turkish Royal cigarettes;
Out on my back porch tonight under the stars;
And I pull out the very last one;
And I light it up I'm either saying cut or I'm saying action...
Every pack of cigarettes a movie.