Poetry

didn’t let him see her

looks well — settled in well

not seeing her — not agitated

only communicating with staff he likes

doesn’t like other residents therefore few activities

some men’s activities

looked well

eating, not depressed

———

busy marking this week

Church bells beat my alarm to my ears

And there ain’t no going back down

In the fridge there is a carton of orange juice and a can of beer

a gander at the calendar confirms Busch is today’s breakfast

snatch a flannel from the floor 

Pull up some breeches from the hamper

A hat’s thrown on my head

And I’m out the door

I take the long way around town to avoid the Methodists

I cut through an alley taking precautions against the Baptists

I pass the Episcopalian church

I ain’t too sure if there are any of em’ in there

By the time I’m down yonder approaching the porch

I’m damn well sure I’m making a mistake

I sit behind the rusted john-boat and smoke a cigarette to clear my head

I splash on cologne from my shirt pocket to hide the stench

I walk into the house to be greeted by a creaky floor

The memory of the smell of pot roast is the only thing that feels welcoming

I take my seat at the table

As the ghosts begin to talk

They ask me about what I know

That new job and so on

I clean my plate 

Hug my mama

Daddy tells me he’s proud of me

If he ever meant it

I hit the sidewalk

The good ole boys pass by in their truck

I light up my second.

Midmorning abeam, abuzz, aubade about

walking our old block, applauding the view

that Yonkers is fair facsimile of my twenties. I can’t.

I can’t unthink pariah dogs queuing on rain’s garnet,

canines bared like tracer bullets at the street – nothing new

about collaborating with synecdoche of oneself.

The past. I could touch it                    almost, open

the day like a devotional book, work its clasp like

a dog’s flews and stare down its gullet, gasp

into living dark. Wycliffe called it

vtmer derknessis in St. Matthew’s account

of the healing at Capernaum (the desperate centurion

with his palsied son), translating Christ’s address as                                    Parable of the Weeds

ther schal be wepyng and gryntyng of teeth.                                       

My mind works through this forecast of tears

and how it was ten years before I first came to New York 

that I last took the bus from Echo Industrial Park,

believing it possible, then, to be reborn as morning

is, shedding night’s clothes at the close of shift.

Now I dog the blunting of an uncertain future

at midcareer. Health to the new bosses, sure.

As Christ sat at meat in Matthew’s house,

loud as a beaten dog, perhaps my namesake knew

the thousand ways to be shameless in a small town.

Perhaps knew that for small men, leaving leaves

nothing to choose between living & the life.

When the next-door neighbor

Molotov cocktailed our house

just after a midnight in June,

all four of us were asleep, we

who’d moved back home to the

Pacific Northwest after two

decades of lake effect snow,

thanks to those bodies of water

known as the greats. Their

delivery, similar to his, dropped

a cold so quick we’d often wake

like we did when the firemen

lumbered through our house

that hot night. Sometimes, the

Michigan snow kept closed

all that could open. Sometimes,

our next-door neighbor stood

out in the rain, his neck craning

at the possibility of drones above.

Snow can fool you, if you look

at it long enough. Everywhere

starts to look like it’s down.

If you don’t have an opening,

thoughts can take you there,

too. At the trial, our next-door

neighbor confessed to thinking

we were the bad neighbors from

years ago. I opened a door in the

place where I live. I asked him to

come inside.

I ponder on the idea of great fields,

            Petals falling from yellow roses,

                        How their stems wither upon departure.

The winter mornings resist blooming,

            Dandelions carry away until spring,

                        Frost creeps over their corpses.

Their memories live in the depths of summer,

            November air fades the tint,

                        And no small hands

Reach for them to carry inside before dinner,           

            As mom cooks over the oven,

                        And dad comes home too late.

The grass of the fields never stops swaying, even

            As the air begins to dim

                        And flowers wilt.

I think it’s funny you chose a cheetah print notebook with a hot pink stripe down the middle. On the cover, you wrote your name. Harry. Your lines and curves in each letter are crooked, shaky like my hands as I flip it open and thumb through the pages. Your rich brown thoughts poured on each page, stained by the tobacco on your fingers. I imagine you, sitting on the left end of the couch, journal teetering on the rounded arm, a Pilot G2 in hand. Names, a doctor’s phone number, the bank’s phone number, medicines you were taking, why you were taking them, dreams you had—all written in slanted black ink on cream pages. I hold a portal to your thoughts in my hands and every time, with no ounce of hesitation, I jump in.