Gods once walked among us.
They loomed overhead
and we felt comfort
and had no fear in their presence.
They made us feel small
and also powerful.
They taught us jokes
and how to snap or whistle.
They showed us love
in it's most gentle, gracious form.
They fill us with wisdom
coded as stories from their youth.
And they left us far, far too soon.

They burned you in
a pine box, but removed
your rings.
We got a bag of ash
to fill the ******* wound
left in the world.
Stiff upper lip.
Locking the doors behind
we all found ourselves
in different rooms.
We didn't just lock out
the world, we locked out
each other.
We learned to grieve
and we learned to die
And learned to do them alone.
The gods are dying
but we still worried
that people might think us
weak.

I agonized over the words.
Arranging them in different ways
structuring a cyclical ending
to tie back into the begining.
I wanted so badly to make
you proud of me, one last time,
using the only tool that
had never failed me.
Using my words.
The dead are not shamed
but they are also not proud
and furthermore
I don't even remember
what words I said.

I remember you.
I remember all of you.
And I still remember
what is was like before
I carried all the years
and the sad around with me.
I remember when songs
didn't make me remember
just because they're somber.
I used to be whole and complete
but time has turned me
away from the loving face
of those long dead gods.

Rain was crashing against
the shoreline in angry sheets
and you were yelling something
at me through the cacophony.
I didn't know what you said
but I knew you weren't smiling.

Half of my lifetime earlier
I was in the basement
orchestra practice room.
She was there, weeping about
harsh criticism.
I thought she played beautifully.
Everything about her was
beautiful.
She kissed me, then
but I turned around and ran.
I didn't know what else to do.

When highschool ended
I sat her on a bench outside
of the eatery we both worked.
I told her that we were
done now. That it was the
wise way to go.
Distance, I told her,
has always proven too much
for me to overcome.
She said she loved me.
I said I was sorry.
I didn't know what else to do.

Her successors didn't have
better luck.
They would love me
and I would run away.
A heart meant to break.
I thought, if you really care
for them you'll leave.
I thought, you're not capable
of reciprocation.
You're not capable of love.

I had never been in love
but I had not been kind enough
to have always been alone.
I used to wish I had.
I don't pretend to understand love
but I know this much:
It is like a tragedy and a miracle,
you can't manufacture it
it just happens to you.

You shouted into the oncoming
maelstrom words I didn't know.
Couldn't hear.
Your eyes were strong
you're the strongest person
I've ever known.
I shouted back,
"I love you."
Lightning crashed in the distance
and that oh-so-serious face
finally turned into a smile
and in so doing
it broke my heart.

"Second star to the right."
You said.
"Straight on 'til morning."
I finished.
We were Peter Pan
Capt. Kirk.
We were teenagers
graduated from provisional licenses
and invincible and racing the dawn.
On the horizon was the future
and all the possibilities that entailed.
You and me,
my little brother.
The second star of our
stupid little story.

In Kansas you joked,
"I don't think we're in the Bronx anymore."
And even though it had
been years since we'd
left those streets behind
we laughed like criminals.
We weren't whole anymore
but we weren't totally broken
yet, either.

"I don't think I've ever been in love."
I confessed below an
open night sky filled with stars.
You punched me in the arm
and smiled the same smile
I had known all your life,
"Party ain't over yet, man."

I woke up yesterday
and I was thirty-something
but I remembered
the wanderlust of
yesteryear and I remembered
how much we'd been through
and I thought I'd give you
a call. Let you know
as long as we have one another,
Brother, we're Peter Pan
Capt. Kirk
And even if we're not
in The Bronx anymore,
The party ain't over.
Not for us.
You're still my second star.

One warm night in 2004:
I'd chased our old friend
around until finally
he collapsed onto that
bench in the quad.
We sat on the low wall
and looked at him.
"You're a good friend."
You told me, " You're always
making sure everyone is okay."
You asked what he'd taken
I told you it was on my list
of questions to get answered.


A year before:
I heard a knock
at the front door.
I opened it to find
you with our old friend.
"Heard you missed your bus."
You'd said, "Campus seems empty
without you."

Months later I bent over
to light a cigarette off the
glowing orange of
your cigarette.
Twin brief embers lighting
the cramped backseat
of your car.
You smiled,
and looked at me with
lightning in your eyes.
"We're kinda kissing."
You told me.
You moved closer...

That night:
You lit a cigarette and handed
it to me to light my own.
Our old friend slept it
off on the bench.
"Who takes care of you?"
You asked.
I told you it was on
the list.
"I could take care of you."
You'd said.

Before:
We were parked by my house
you had set off the
automatic locks on my door
so I couldn't get out.
I raised an eyebrow at you.
The ionic power between
your eyes and my heart
felt like it'd tear me apart.
"You can kiss me, you know."
You paused, "I want you to."
I moved closer...

We didn't last. We were
on an escalator at a mall
when it became official,
only I don't think we knew that.
A friend made it official
not us. Our friends had
the best of intentions.
But...
I moved further away from you.
I wasn't ready.
You weren't sure.
There is an outdoor table
on campus where it ended.

That night:
Maybe the moment
didn't matter to you
but it was the moment
I decided.
We'd already broken up
but everyone thought...
We thought it too,
that we might
not be finished.
That our flame might
be rekindled and burn
forever.
I put out my cigarette and
I turned back to
our old friend and I said,
"We've tried that. Didn't work."

We got in the car and
looked out at the road ahead.
"Pick a direction." I said.
I'd been desperately poor
and so hungry I couldn't
bare to eat.
I'd been on buildings
so tall I thought I might
touch the sky
and valleys so low
one worried the levy
wouldn't hold
but I was 17 just that once.

I recall throwing back
my head and screaming,
full throated, into an
empty night sky.
I once called the rain
in a mall parking lot
just outside of Baltimore.
I got so sick I thought
I'd die on an NYC subway.
I traveled with you
across this country
for just shy of 3 months.
I was 17 just that once.

I was three years in exile
in Dover, Delaware.
I felt cold Chicago rain
and New England sea breeze.
I've labored in Floridian humidy
and dressed against the
chill fog rolling in off
San Francisco bay.
I shoveled snow in Alaska
and got chased by fire ants
into an above ground pool
in Austin, Texas.
But I was only 17 that once.

We got into my beatup
old car, loaded with
the Spartan bag of clothes
we'd learned to have ready
to go over a lifetime of
sudden and drastic moves.
We'd stop for beef jerky
and drinks.
We'd stop to see the sights
we wanted to see.
We'd stop to get off the road
and stretch our legs.
"Pick a direction." I said.
I was only 17 that once.

I will try to measure my life
in codes for digital downloads
and in the many hundreds
of hours I've spent alone.
I don't know how else to do it.
I don't know how else to make it fit.
We never know it's finished
until it finally is.

One day we don't wake up
and we live in fear until it's over.
Because we don't know the
measure of us.
When my life is over and examined
what underlaying themes
will I find present?
And how do I prevent it?

And what of unfinished business
and loose story threads?
Do they get picked up and continued
in some later person's tale
or are they frayed too much for mending?
Am I too concerned with the ending?

Can I map a life to
Campbell's hero's journey?
Is the living as predictable
as a story circle?
It's certainly not as entertaining.
Do we reach apothosis
without a threshold being crossed?
Are we remembered fondly
or are we eventually lost?

I don't know the answers
but I sure wish I did.
We are thirty years from collapse
and riding a very fine line.
I need to learn not to fear
the fast approaching ending
because we're running long on story
but very short on time.

I remember the air
shimmering above hot roads
and sidewalks.
It rippled like water
and invited mirage.
We'd meet up in the
alleyway under my
fire escape and set off,
on bikes and skates and boards
and even on foot.
We'd be gone from the block
but usually still in the neighborhood.
Sometimes at lunch,
when everyone came back
to eat, I'd go up to the
corner store and one of
the uncles would buy me
a coke if I swept up or
moved some boxes.
I'd roll up comic books and
stuff them in my back pockets
because I had seen
Ric's older cousin do it
and I thought it was
the coolest thing.
At night we'd sneak into
the public pool to go for swims.
Some of the us would smoke
and talk about gossipy nothing
and some of us would try
to convince the girls to
give us secret kisses under
the water.
We were happy to be out
of the heat.
One weekend we biked,
my brother and I,
onto the island so we
could go to the good
theather, the air conditioner
worked and the movies
were played as double features.
We killed an entire
afternoon watching films
from the 80s play
back to back.
I sat, one evening, on the
lip of the roof of Ami's building.
She was staring at me
from across the roof
daring me to call her attention.
"Whatchu got, big guy?"
I leaned back and threw
out my arms, making slow
lazy circles and smiling
broadly at her and at everyone.
For a second, though it was
brief, the smile vanished.
I could feel the pull of
gravity in my belly and groin.
I felt suddenly weightless.
I was so sure...
but my feet kicked out and
the weight shifted
and I was fine.
She was making her way
over to me and I don't
remember what happened
next or what we said.
I remember the feeling.
I remember the fear.
I had nothing to compare
it to. It was huge and
intense and profound.
It was like...
It was like falling in love.
When it rained,
like sheets with wind whipping
between the buildings
as though through canyon walls,
we'd stay in and futz
with Great Grandma's
old black and white set.
One of us would hold the antenna,
the rest indicating how high
or far away.
We'd take turns,
switching out during commercials.
Waiting out the rain.
It's gone now, of course.
The city has a gestational period
like cicadas.
The city I know,
the city I moved away from
is gone.
Yesterday's New York.
I've learned since
to fall in love, elsewhere.