In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars.
but the only one you wanted to see was her
“Can’t repeat the past? Why...of course you can!”
and so you did.
or at least attempted too.
but it didn’t work for you
now did it,
old sport?
because the harder you tried to
keep up this game
the more they rewrote the rules
“they’re a rotten crowd” I shouted across the lawn. “you’re worth the whole **** bunch put together!”

you fell in love with the girl
whose voice was full of money
in the valley of ashes.
looked at her the way every young girl wants to be looked at
a beautiful little fool, she was
perfect for you

afternoon tea
silk shirts stained by her tears
your resurrection
was born.
or so you thought.

you were endlessly
attempting to recreate
a  sequel to that summer night in 1945
the kiss
the sky
that night.

your death was almost heroic
only you and I know
you were doomed from the start
“gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter - tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther...and one fine morning- so we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

High up on a hill
Like a little castle
Windows like the sun
T.J. Eckleburg’s eyes
Watching down below like the representative eyes of God
I can’t write poetry
This is a failure
Whatever
I wonder if the people in that building knew how they’d die
I wonder if we all know how we’ll die but we just can’t remember until we’re there
I hope my death is like a déjà vu
I hope I see this picture when I die
And the sky will be the same colour
And the ground will be cold and rocky
Somewhere in my line of sight there’ll be a building
With windows like the eyes of God
And I promise not to go into the light
But I can’t say it’ll offer the same courtesy
Maybe the people inside will be staring at screens or marking little boxes in the shape of my eyes with little x’s
They could be talking
Maybe, laughing
Morbidly joking, “oops there goes another one”
While they sip pinot grigio and pretend to be scientists
With their degrees bought in the black market
Agents of God that even He, Himself decided to write off
High up in the sky, watching life unfold like a bad reality TV show
God must hate reality TV

your mother asks you to                                                    
make her breakfast

2. she has lived your life
two and a half times over
she knows everything about the world
and you know nothing
is what she tells you
when she is bending you backward with her voice
when she is loud and searing and immediate
an avalanche woman bringing boulders
to her feet

3. your mother takes up space
she attracts
she magnetizes
you are fighting your way out of her orbit
but it is hard
you perform elliptical rotations
around her and count the seconds
between your words and her rage
it is a bittersweet spectacle
beautiful in its torment
like watching a dying star absorb itself:
this huge white brilliance, this ricocheting sound,
the tears there is no gravity
to catch

4. you look at your mother
the way she mirrors you in reverse
her laugh is your laugh
but not your laugh
her hair hits her left collarbone
the way yours does your right
her pain is blue like yours
but hers is navy and yours looks like a blue iris
when light cuts through it
like the eyes of T.J. Eckleburg
surveying you as you excavate your feelings
all-knowing in their grief


5. your mother is you and she is not-you
so peel the grapefruit and cut it in half
plate the eggs
bring it all to her with coffee
the way she likes it
cream, no sugar


6. forgive her
even though

A SINGLE GREEN LIGHT

Time slows down
so that your funeral

and the funeral of your character
become as one.

The same unremitting rain
...hardly anyone came.

Dorothy Parker echoes
the end of your book

"The poor *******!"
This The Great Fitzgearld.

The Episcopalian rector declaims
that the only reason he gave the service

"..was to get the body
in the ground."

He speaks of you as
"a no-good, drunken ***

the world was well rid
of him."

As if the faded eyes
of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg

gazed down mercilessly
upon your soul

What was it Scott
the Good Book said?

Corinthians something something
or other:

"So we fix our eyes not on what is seen,
but on what is unseen...

since what is seen is temporary,
but what is unseen is eternal."

You the great writer of
the eternal unseen.

Now you walk about
in the wonder of all your words.

A SINGLE GREEN LIGHT

Time slows down
so that your funeral

and the funeral of your character
become as one.

The same unremitting rain
...hardly anyone came.

Dorothy Parker echoes
the end of your book

"The poor *******!"
This The Great Fitzgerald.

The Episcopalian rector declaims
that the only reason he gave the service

"..was to get the body
in the ground."

He speaks of you as
"a no-good, drunken ***

the world was well rid
of him."

As if the faded eyes
of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg

gazed down mercilessly
upon your soul

What was it Scott
the Good Book said?

Corinthians something something
or other:

"So we fix our eyes not on what is seen,
but on what is unseen...

since what is seen is temporary,
but what is unseen is eternal."

You the great writer of
the eternal unseen.

Now you walk about
in the wonder of all your words.


*

The burial of F. Scott Fitzgerald crossed with the burial of Gatsby...fiction and reality mingling....Jay Gatsby and F. Scott Fitzgerald now merged into one,