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Flowers for Jupiter Sandwiches The Director Firefly Jealous of a Dead Girl Plane Trip #79 Little Thing Minneapolis #128 At Arm’s Length Your Minnesota Morning The Funeral Some Things Can Be Returned A Favor One Basket Nothing Lasts Forever How to Say You're Sorry Birthday #44 Secret History Needs December 21 Dance Plans The Driving Range I Think of You as Heaven Lives for Love Minneapolis #127 Minneapolis #126 The King Title IX The Perfect Stroke Of Hell and Heaven Promise The Last Day of These Old Shoes Break My Heart Slowly My Loyalty is to You Ferry to Texas Next > |
Flowers for Jupiter
That’s just god’s way of keeping your hand from having a dirty mouth. Some people who say their finger got cut off are just referring to the first knuckle, or even the just the tip. But to her that’s nothing: Her finger was cut clear off, the whole thing, right at the bottom where it reaches the palm. And the strangest thing, the strangest thing of all, maybe the strangest thing you know is that it’s the middle finger that’s missing. The accident didn’t touch the ones on either side but plucked the middle one clear off, down to nothing. Nothing at all. Her mother said: That’s just god’s way of keeping your hand from having a dirty mouth. Mother says that, like some kind of endearment. She wonders about her finger. Where is now? What became of the bones? Were they burned? Were they buried? Were they stomped into the ground? She cannot remember the loss, but she still feels her finger. It does not have a dirty mouth, but calls to her sweetly, it’s voice not a song but a peep, like a tiny chick, and as with a tiny chick’s peep she hears the sound of scratching in the background. She cannot remember the loss, but has been told the story enough times to believe she can remember it, or rather, she can picture it, she a player in a movie about a girl losing a finger. The girl is three. Did someone find that little finger? Did they think it was sweet and put it in a matchbox? Did it rot in the dirt, nearly too small for maggots? Did someone save the bones and are they treasured like seashells? The girl is playing where she knows not to be, though one watching the film might wonder why one so young should be left unattended. The setting is not a park, but rather an empty lot beside an apartment building. The young actress sees a park, plays the role of a child in the park. A small child, a tiny child. Unattended. Is her finger in a jar filled with formaldehyde? Does her finger smell like chemicals, dirt, ash or nothing? They shot a number of scenes for the film, each with some variation. In one version it is a vehicle that catches the finger. In another, an appliance. In one version it is something sharp that takes the finger. In another something crushes it. In the climax the young actress portrays the mix of agony and will. Using as her motivation the idea of being punished for playing where she knows - even at three - she is not supposed to play, she tugs her hand away, the repercussion of an excised middle finger seeming less tragic than a spanking at the time. The epilogue takes place in hospital whites, like heaven, surrounded by nurses who care and doctors who shake their heads, questioning either the will of the little girl, or the plausibility of the script more generally. What becomes of all the body parts, the lost limbs and other visible, familiar pieces? Is there some ceremony? Do they bury them? She has spent her life mourning her middle finger. Is there some partial funeral when some part of you is lost? She dismisses that idea, what with the time we’d spend, standing around our own graves. Sandwiches
I fall on deaf ears. I ask. Just a little but. Sometimes more. Shout/whisper/act. Doesn’t matter. I stand there waiting to order a sandwich. They talk, doing nothing while I wait. He walks up and stands behind me. They ask him: “What can I get for you?” I touch my face. He knows. He says: “Don’t worry. I can see you.” I fall on deaf ears. I ask. Just a little but. Sometimes more. I want to be loved and I want to be cherished. But then, who doesn’t? He was grading on a curve. He said: “Not everyone in this class will deserve an A. And one of you will have to fail.” I pout and drag my feet. I hunch up. On purpose. I breathe in little bursts that sound like crying. I think of ___________ and I cry. He asks: “What’s for dinner?” I tell him: “Sandwiches.” The Director
He called himself a director then. He hung out in the ski towns working odd jobs to finance his film. He had some ideas, but. Mostly he got by on his charm. It worked on you. And it worked on him, the man who should have been his landlord but instead was his benefactor, wooed by the striking looks and vintage style and a steady flow of top shelf weed. He got by like that, tending bar on the side. An actor whose name you’d recognize – the actor too was young then, but already fairly established; an actor whose name you’d recognize came to town and took a liking (wooed by striking looks, vintage style and a steady flow of top shelf weed) - an actor whose name you’d recognize took a liking and bought him a high-end camera, like some extravagant gratuity to his handsome bartender and, laughing in a practiced yet captivating manner that could make you think he was joking when he wasn’t and designed to take the edge off any awkward situation said, “I’d like executive production credit.” And so the actor’s talent was validated by how he could make an ultimately selfish act – the cost of the camera was nothing to him, a lottery-ticket-priced investment – how he could make an ultimately selfish act feel like a favor granted. You’re not sure how much he ever used the camera. You heard he shot a video for some band from Argentina but then they never paid him. And by some obscene quirk in international law, they controlled all the footage too he said. And some guys from Vail or Aspen took him copter skiing in Alaska so he could shoot them “for the record”. Personally, you never saw it. But you heard it looked really good. You had your year of fucking around, your year of top shelf weed. Then you moved on. You hear from him from time to time and generally speaking the amount of money he is asking for is typically so small that you never say no, and usually send a little extra, only occasionally wondering how many more there are just like you, how many had passed through over the years and if, perhaps, the humble request did sound a little rehearsed, or at least like several before you might have heard it. But it makes you feel young, like passing a joint to a stranger. He’s always asking for so little. So you don’t mind. Then came some injury, a torn ACL or maybe that’s just how you wrote it up because of where and how you knew him. He has a wife and son in Texas of all places, miles and miles and miles from any snow so of course it’s hard to place him when your paths cross in Martha’s Vineyard where you are on vacation and he is waiting tables and you’re not sitting in his section, but he trades for you. You catch up in bits and pieces between requests for forks and ketchup because he can’t sit down right now, he’s working. You ask him what he’s doing here and he says, “I’m trying to make a better life for my wife and my child.” He said it kind of arrogant like that and when you tell him you’d love to meet Annie and the boy he says, “Then go to Texas.” You’re hoping the service is terrible because he’s working outside his section and you leave him another extravagant tip he does not deserve, for another project he will never finish, hoping it smoothes things over enough for you to find out if he still has the best weed around; thinking Hey, I’m on vacation. Firefly
Looking at it from where you are now do you feel shame, or pity? You tolerate too much. You get drunk on the smallest bits of affection. You’re alone too much. You dream too much, pretending you believe that if you want something badly enough, it will come to you; that if you work hard enough, it will come to you; that if you don’t give up, it will come to you. You neglect the role of talent in the equation. You fail to recognize when one’s dreams are frivilous, or even impossible. Dreams don’t feed families. Dreams don’t feed hope, when echoing across the bones of one’s inner ear is their mother’s voice saying – not to be cruel, but rather that you might learn from her mistakes, because she loves you, and they hurt her, and she just as soon you not make them - echoing across the malleus, the incus, the stapes a sound only you can hear: Her voice, sincere with death, saying, “You are among my greatest disappointments.” In the darkened room you see the firefly, even before it lights up. Through some chemistry or electric pulse, it actually does glow, illuminating the objects on the wall: Framed photographs of her. Like you, it is trapped inside this house. Like you, it is uncertain how it arrived here, and though consciously out-of-place, it has no plans to exit. Like you it dreams of lovers it will never know and grieves for things that haven’t yet died. It avoids consideration of its catastrophic failures, failures that have it here, like you, in this darkened room. It goes about its business. This was the dream. It will die in this house. Jealous of a Dead Girl
Their college friend died and sure she was young and all that yes yes but he was taking it too hard. She had hardly ever seen him cry and had never seen him cry sober. But he cried over her. He insisted on going to the funeral even though they had to take two days off to do it and they were planning on a cruise in November so she worried this was going to screw things up somehow, using up vacation days. For what? For the funeral of a girl they hadn’t spoken to in ten years. At the wake he threw his arms around her, got snot in her hair. She had thought about an up-do, something formal like that. But she’d wanted to look mature, not old. She was ashamed of his weeping at the service. None of their friends were crying like that especially none of the men and really most of them weren’t there to begin with. She felt like people were staring at her. Like they knew something. This made her miserable. This is why she cried. Serves her right she thought. Plane Trip #79
Between my vantage point and the sun waterways burn like jewels, blinding me. I seek them, lakes and rivers. I want them but am relieved when they disappear, when land rules and nothing shines or hurts my eyes. Leaving today is like that, with something I crave to forget but too that which I know I will miss; what I miss now and missed even before I left it, knowing the pain was coming. He broke my heart. I never thought he would, not ever. And the walls I love best are haunted and time passes within them in a specific way that makes it hard to take, or makes me feel like I’m taking it over and over. It feels good to leave, or will. But right now there is a vague mourning of another he, a he who has not broken my heart, not yet. And while he will and I know this there is some part of me that wants to suck up every single second with him before it happens. I am terrified of dying young, but terrified of outliving him. Infection rattles my chest and I imagine the sun will cure me with the same dedication that this rarefied air is likely to make me worse. Worse, and better, blinded and all the while thinking that what is right here in front of me is more beautiful than even tightly closed eyes can remember. Survival is the ultimate victory. So it’s not that I’ve either lived or I’ve won. I want to suck up every single second. He will break my heart but he hasn’t yet. I return more anxious than I depart. But that one, him, he came out of nowhere. I loved an invention and like all machinations it broke down. It’s the contrast see, the difference. It is sun shining until it hurts. It takes something of you with it, next time you will see less. Oh, but this time, this time. Little Thing
There is a possession I treasure most of all. It does not feel like a possession. It feels like I am possessed; like I am owned. It feels like cohabitation, like free will, like choice. It doesn’t feel bought, even if it is. It is my most prized possession. It is him, it is her, it breathes, it loves or I think it does, I say it does. I say it loves me. It sits beside me. It sleeps. It sleeps beside me. It doesn’t listen. I own it. I found it. I bought it. I could destroy it if I wanted to. Someday I will. I fear it. I fear it terribly, miserably; discipline is reversed. It owns me. I call it. I say its response is voluntary, I have evidence because response is not universal, only consistent. Eyes, eyes, million mile eyes – they belong to me. I have seen them sink, float. I own it. I pay for it. I could kill and it will make me do this. We will both die, at least for awhile. Minneapolis #128
The ice is off the lake. It happened outside my dreams. I had dreamed so vividly the ice was gone that for weeks I’d been shocked by the sight of it. I was not shocked to see it missing. I do not want the leaves to come. Soon I will see leaves instead of sky. But the wish that this might last forever is one certain not to come true. I wish to dream of leafless branches, of buds and bark, this eternal spring. At Arm’s Length
He keeps her in his life at arm’s length. He keeps her as a reminder of the worst mistake he didn’t make, but could have. He almost left his wife for her. He almost left his life for her. But he didn’t. She was so pretty then. They matched perfectly in bed. It was natural to be caught up. Or maybe it was his catholic upbringing because – despite of course the adultery - he felt guilty sleeping with someone he didn’t love. So he loved her. He loved his wife too. The whole thing made him feel so sad. The psychic at the company party was supposed to be a novelty, but when she took his hand and told him, “You’re in love with two people,” he could feel himself blanch. He wondered if everyone knew. He wondered if his wife knew. He didn’t want that. His lover didn’t love him and she told him so. He found her declaration fairly noble, given the extent to which he was helping her out at the time. He was crushed, but mostly because he was used to winning. He was crushed, but. He had almost left his wife for her; his gentle, loving wife. He keeps her at arm’s length. They work together. He feels dirty sometimes when he says her name. He feels dirty when he says her name to his wife. At arm’s length, he sees her with some perspective. Older now, not so pretty, or maybe still pretty but. He sees differently. From his distance he does truly feel love for her, spring snow love, slushy gray and wet. His heart bursts with storms of gratitude. She saved him. Your Minnesota Morning
There was something that needed to be done: A door unlocked, a neighbor’s garage and a worker needing access... you’d agreed to help, and thus find yourself up a bit earlier than usual on a Sunday morning. It’s warm, warmer than it should be perhaps but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t feel good, because it does. Your eye makes note of light’s angle, you could never be fooled into thinking that an autumn day was a summer one. But it’s that kind of air, tinged with an August hint of decay. There are leaves on the ground, but not many. There are leaves turning, mostly yellow so far, but not many of those, either. You take your bike to the coffee shop three blocks away. It’s busy there. There are tables outside in what may have once been a garage, or loading dock. It’s shaded, that part of the building, but frontless, outdoors. Each outside table has one or two people plus a dog. You pat a willing one on your way inside, a bristly pup named Buster Brown. Inside are rich colors and lots of sun. You order a large cappuccino and a raspberry scone and maybe it surprises you just a little bit that the fellow serving you is so pleasant, even kind. I mean, he’s working on a Sunday morning, at a coffee shop – kind of hipster coffee shop, and it would be natural it seems for him to provide a bit of attitude to you, however subtle. But he doesn’t. And he’s patient with you when you ask about sugar, a lid. And he’s patient with you when forgetfully leave your scone on the counter, peaceably walking up behind you with your white waxed bag, handing it over, neither discipline nor humor in his eyes. You walk back out through the dogs. Buster Brown is preoccupied with some fuzzy poodle-mix so you don’t pet him this time. It’s a bit of a strange choice, but you decide to sit on a high curb along the alley adjacent to the frame shop parking lot. It’s a perfect height for sitting, and the tall quiet guy at the frame store – you think his name is Neil – has planted a garden in the elevated flower boxes between the lot and sidewalk. Or rather, he’s planted a farm: You eat crumbly scone and with your eye you pick the tomatoes, the peppers, the eggplant, the chives. You consider how your own tomato plants have ceased to produce since the sun crossed over into the southern sky, and consider without worry the green fruit on your own vines, wondering if they’ll ever come around. Back to the coffee shop to throw your paper cup and bag away, and there are a new batch of dogs, strange and total replacement, these all larger ones – a red Vizsla, a golden Labrador, a black and tan Airedale. When you woke this morning and managed to actually keep going once the neighbor’s door was opened (resisting the urge to just return to bed) you had a vision of all the things you’d complete today - lawn mowing, bill paying, dish washing and a household sweep, all before your softball game this afternoon. But this soft air, this time of year each warm day is duly named The Last One and so is loved accordingly; each day is the one that always says no to you, surprising you by saying yes. So you take it up. You weave the four or five blocks to the lake, taking your time, looking at the houses and the trees. There is an old tiny woman sitting in a lawn chair in a patch of sun, an orange cat splayed across her chest. They each look to be sleeping, but you see her hand moving, slowly, tiny, loving strokes. You pass a dog you know named Lady, wiry with ice-blue eyes, and you wince riding passed a favorite, giant elm that you know will soon come down, the orange mark of disease blazed across it like a scarlet letter. It’s been a bad year for the elms. In Minnesota, you live beneath the trees. They are not the prehistoric trees of the Northwest. No, these trees are your peers, or friends of your parents. They are so subtle and integral that it’s nearly hard to even consider them, the dappled shade such a standard comfort, like one’s own skin. Maybe that’s why the lakes are so stunning, this lake, blue and open and offering some perspective. The streets to here were empty but the lake itself is active. There is a parade of walkers and dogs on the inside path closest to shore. The water is glistening, and a breeze from the north finds you adjacent to choppy water, which ducks ride with no mind and windsurfers slice with hunger and some glee. The outer path isn’t exactly thick with bikes but there are plenty of them, a few helmeted racers; a few helmeted children with training wheels, their parents walking beside them on the grass just off the path’s shoulder; most riders just tooling, a pair of riders shouting a conversation that you hear in a snippet as they pass: “And then he left on Friday for... ”but they are too far for you to learn where “he” left to, or if he maybe left for good. It makes you feel applied to ride fast. You call it exercise. You join the path, pedaling for all you’re worth, keeping pace with no one but rather setting your own. You pass serious and casual roller bladers. You keep your head down, pumping, even though it’s tempting to look around, especially at girls and mansions. You are flying. There is nothing to stop you. Now the bird sanctuary is on your right, and the Peace Garden is behind you. You decide to do another lake, keep going. You take the branch of trail that veers north, stopping for no one, though it’s natural for the cars to yield you right of way where the path cuts across the lake road. The next lake is bigger, more open, fewer trees along the shore. There are sailboats on the lake, all white sails and this isn’t the first time you think about what it would be like to have a little boat like that, riding over just as you’re doing now, taking it out on a morning just like this one. There are already people playing volleyball on the sand courts beside the water. There are already motorcycles lining up along the lake’s southwest edge, their riders spreading blankets out beside them, sitting on the grass with legs outstretched, leaning back on elbows and tilting chins toward the sun, white bits of light from the water dancing on them. You’re still pumping. It’s hot, suddenly it seems too hot, too tropical for October. But you feel you are accomplishing something. You head north to yet another lake, this one with waving shoreline and great houses and then yes, ah, some shade, trees again. You’re some miles away but you already feel it – the home stretch. You pull up some, coming fully upright near the dog park and slowing to watch a bulldog chase some leggy thing twice its height, which then turns, causing the bulldog to brake abruptly, panting. It shakes it head and spit flies backlit in filtered sun. Heading home along the western shore of the first lake you are fully tooling. You take your hands off the bars and place them on your hips. This lake seems cooler somehow, the breeze coming off the water, and you stop just before your usual turn up the hill home to step into the water. It’s still warm, or warm enough, it feels wet but not cold exactly; it feels good. You walk in up to your thighs and its little debate before you just dive in, coming up again some ten yards from shore, looking around you, feeling good, great even, great and lucky before swimming back in and sitting in the grass, now your own head tilted back, now white bits of light bouncing off the water onto you. Your eyes are closed. It is a grunt and wet clomp that pulls you from your sense of touch back into your other senses: It is the sound of a dog prancing along the shore, wet like you are. You watch the dog pause the shake and don’t even realize how this inspires you: You shake too, your own great head throwing water, and you pick up the bike and pedal home, distracted now admittedly, remembering already even though the experience is still happening, thinking about how sweet its been even though it still is. You make note of squirrels crossing your path and even one you catch walking, walking slowly, which seems like spying somehow since squirrels tend to be so busy and so fast. You’re trying to stay in it, but here comes your alley and you’re home now, thinking about what comes next: Writing it down. The Funeral
The mom didn’t want to buy the whole overdose thing though it was more than clear to the rest of us. She preferred accident, mishap...even murder. She kept looking at us like we did this. And it’s true, we did this. But only to ourselves. There were six of us there well maybe four at any given time since we’d sneak away to smoke. The color of our leather wasn’t enough to make us appropriate. Might have been drunk too. It’s true, we did this. We all did then. Seven there that day including the dead one, down some from last time since one or two disappeared and another starting talking. Only to ourselves: He had a kid we never knew about. We all hugged the kid and it stood there stiff little soldier at the tomb and that’s just what it was I suppose. I sobered up after that but only for a while. Was lonely without my friends. Friends: I’d lose them and replace them and stopped going to the funerals until my own which of course I didn’t have a choice about. Five of them, younger, huddled around the grave not shivering this time cause of summer but dressed like all the others, black leather reeking of sweat and tobacco. Some Things Can Be Returned
I gave a lover something precious but when I didn’t love him anymore I wanted it back. Like the seasons he changed: From something new, to something soft; from something striking and volatile to something: Cold. So like a tree I cut him down. I did not use an axe but rather something else. Severed from his base, branches broken, vulnerable, where any part of him might be reached: I took it back. A Favor
(I am scared of dying young but I’m scared of living longer than you.) Do this for me: Take it slow. Do this for me: Suffer. Suffer terribly. Suffer hard. Suffer miserably, so that I will be able to let you go. One Basket
I am waiting for you to resurrect. I am waiting for you to return to me. And when you do I will appreciate you more this time. I will believe you: All those times you told me you were holy and asked me to bend. I will forgive you for those times I bent and for how hard you tried to break me. I am waiting for you to resurrect. I am waiting for you to return to me. And when you do at last I will allow myself to love you. I will not be afraid to love you because you will never die. Those times you left me abandoned and treated me so badly that I was forced to abandon you; all those cruel words and all those other women: At last I will confess. I will confess that you were right when you told me to forgive you. I will confess that you were right when you told me not to go. I will confess that you were right when you said that you were the best thing that ever happened to me and that without you I was nothing, nothing at all. Now I devote myself. And after all those attempts to seduce and to please you you will be satisfied with something so simple as foiled chocolate or colored eggs. You will be my savior and I will be your subject and you will not be the subject of every conversation, every conversation that I have with therapist or friend. In the South, leaves are dropping as the old you dies. Up here buds are breaking, buds are bursting and I: I am finally coming back together again. Nothing Lasts Forever
(I am scared of dying young but I’m scared of living longer than you.) I’m trying hard not to miss you. Here you are, right beside me, right here in front of me. But of course you will not be here forever. So I’m trying hard not to miss you. How to Say You’re Sorry
If you are apologizing to someone and you don’t even know what you are apologizing for... yet the situation, let’s say it’s love because that’s a pretty one, though it may be you are only seeking peace, or avoiding something worse, like escalation; or even just saying it (“I’m sorry”) to seem bigger – no, not to seem bigger, but to be bigger, though this motivation may well play into one of the previously listed categories like peace, or defense, or even love - if you are saying you are sorry for any reason (short of being patronizing, or with the sheer intent to anger, irritate or perturb) always pretend you know what you are apologizing for, even if you don’t. As such, never frame your apology with, “I don’t even know what I’m apologizing for...”, either before or after the “I’m sorry” or “I apologize”. And additionally, just as it is unwise that shouting a phrase like “Stop crying,” will actually have any positive effect in obtaining that goal, an apology should never be shouted, or yelled, or spit out, or even mumbled. Also, try not to begin any apology with, “Okay then,” “Look,” or “Fine.” If you must, for the sake of rhythm or diction, use a phrase of entry before your actual apology, try, “Please,” or if seeking language less...passionate, yet still heartfelt-sounding, you might try something like, “Gee,” as in: “Gee, I’m sorry.” Or, if still greater impact is sought, try the addition of “So”: “Gee {Please}, I am so sorry.” “Very” can be added as well for still further emphasis: “Please, I am so very sorry.” Of note: The post-amble “Please forgive me,” tends to amplify the seeming sincerity of any apology. Utilize this phrase at your discretion where emphasis is desired and/or forgiveness truly sought. But: Never post-amble your apology with the phrase, “Can’t we just forget it?” or the similarly flavored, “Let’s just forget this.” Please note that to call into question whether any phrase, statement, event or action is forgettable versus memorable serves only to trigger the very act of memory, stimulating and enlarging it to the point of making any phrase, statement, event or action which one seeks to be forgotten (either long or short term) to be in fact remembered eternally, and increasing geometrically the likelihood of the phrase, statement, event or action which one has requested be forgotten in fact be recalled – and in many cases, embellished upon – by the recipient of said request, typically at the point of worst possible advantage to the requester. Please note further the eternal nature of this act of disadvantageous recollection by the recipient of said request, and thus let it serve as motivation to avoid the use of such phrases and requests except where the intent of such usage is to in fact bring about eventual negative confrontation. Lastly, if you are doing something to make someone feel better, please know not to mention that is why you are doing it. Telling someone you are doing something to make them feel better – or worse, telling them are you only doing something to make them feel better – well, it doesn’t work. It doesn’t make them feel better. And apologizing to someone’s friend or rather telling someone’s friend you’re sorry for what you did to them, well I have to say that’s pretty chicken shit. And being pretty chicken shit tends to negate the chance for reconciliation. (Unless of course one is absolutely completely in love in which case even a qualified or half-ass chicken shit apology seems, in the eyes of love, somehow humble or even charming. In which case the points made here previous generally do not apply. At least not in present tense.) But we’re not in love. We’re family. We’re goddamn fucking family. Birthday #44
I’m working on the day before my birthday. Shooting a film in college lecture hall, and the director is being a real shit. He starts in on me in the morning and I know it’s going to be one of those days. I keep away. I bide my time. I tell a joke and the director tells everyone: Stop laughing. I was the last one leave that night, washing our dirty prop dishes in a filthy public bathroom. I wanted to hang a sign: It was this way when I got here. I wanted to hang a sign: The puke in the next sink isn’t mine. But no one comes in anyway. There was candy leftover on the craft table and I gave it to some little boys who were, quite oddly, roaming the halls that night. I exit the filthy bathroom and enter the vacant hallway which is now filled with crushed and smeared chocolate. I couldn’t leave it. Or rather, I couldn’t leave it all. On my hands and knees on the filthy floor, trying to clean it up. Filthy. Dirty. A man walks by and shoots me a filthy dirty look. On my hands and knees, I’m thinking: This is not my mess. But this is my mess. And I bring it home with me. Crushed by unexpected pain from unexpected sources, collaborators and little boys. I thought I was being benevolent. So my birthday rides in on tears, which I finally let go around midnight. And while my birthday may not have been singly notable, it is notable in that it was not the day before it. Relief is my gift, and can anyone argue that relief, if you think about it, is really the sweetest gift of all? Secret History
He is a secret and he is history. And because he is history the secret seems more grand than it might. And because he is secret the history seems more sweet than it really was. It began as torque: All power and my pulse raced. It gained speed, short of breath, it came: To victory. The crash was inevitable. I have scars you can’t see. You have scars, your flesh topographical. I run my tongue along the terrain of the valley where they put you back together again and the mountains formed from upheaval of your bones. Your country was inhabited yes but it is I who conquered you. It is you who colonized me, setting up permanently in my most remote of places, dominating me, dominating me still while I plan a revolt built of cryptic messages and intermittent contact I treasure a little too much. I answer to the crown, you, across the sea. And me, subject: To the smallest of affections. You called it a waste and it’s true after all this time you are still the last one who ever traveled there. So I want to like you more than I ever really did. And because it is secret and because it is history it seems that at last, I do. Needs
It was a socioeconomic relationship. She was always working. She was lonely. He was never working, always broke. They were off and on for years. Years. She kept on going back to him. He kept coming back to her. She was bored. He needed something. But eventually his failures made him unattractive. And she stopped loaning him money, which made her unattractive to him. The story doesn’t end but is rather, simply, forgotten. A Note to the Southern Hemisphere, December 21
Today I give you all I have, every speck of warmth and daylight. Tomorrow, you will be satisfied from this, and we will begin to share. We will share until I have taken everything, and I feel compelled to return it, the sun, back to you, thinking it is the least I can do... Tomorrow I will already be taller, richer. It will be slight but I hope I do not fail to notice this. Tomorrow I will already be growing until I am big enough to give to you. Dance
They beat the drum for war and we dance to it. They take the spoils of war and buy us a little gift with it. He profits, yes but what of it? We all do. We hear the drums. And we dance. And when all this plays out we will have our new slaves. The newest here, willing to work for the least. When they have nothing for long enough they will settle for the smallest scraps. So make certain that, for long enough, they have nothing. Dance to the drums and then dance to the violins. You have to work your way up to here. You are lucky to clean such a nice house, and that I am such a benevolent queen. Look, you’re in America now, where the best of yours is equal to the very worst of ours. You are far from the best and thus something even lower, where ten thousand of you could not equal one of us. No, ten thousand might equate with a single dirty house here. So you, just look how lucky you are with a chance to clean it up. We dance to drums. We dance to violins. This is our right, because everyone else is deaf, or not listening. We dance to drums, we dance to violins. We dance to the fiddle while we burn. Plans
She had plans. She was going to take him to Burma. She would take pictures and he would write. Her father would finance the expedition. She had plans. They would make a book together. She would take photographs and he would write poetry. This would happen in the south of France. The book could be about anything, potted plants or cafes, because they were so creative that the subject didn’t matter. They would go romantic places. They would go ordinary places and turn them romantic. They noticed every little thing. They really saw. She had plans. She would be his agent. Beautiful women would all crave him but she would not be threatened because she and him, they were one. He belonged to her and walking down the streets of Cairo or of Paris together they’d turn heads. Even in her daydreams she was concerned that this was because he was prettier than she, but even in her daydreams she knew it was neurosis, that no one thought so; that she was just as pretty and they turned heads because they shined. She had plans. She would start by renting him an apartment, then buy him a little house. She didn’t want to move in together because that was simply too conventional, and he needed a space in which to write. She preferred to think of her and him as distinctly individual, and voluntarily united precisely by that. He had plans: To gain the quantity of stamps upon his passport that would impress the next woman or girl. He had plans to write great sonnets. It took beauty to know beauty and he was beautiful. He would write beautiful poems. He knew this even before she told him so. He had plans: Not to ask for the laptop he wanted, but to hint. She had money – or her father did – and she was willing to give it up easily, a function of her being spoiled he thought. He was frugal and lazy and thought of her as an opportunity. She had plans: To learn his heart and to work her way in. He stood crying in the center of the street in Cabarete, worried she had seen him with that teenage girl and as a result had left him there. He cried for being such a fool, getting caught and throwing things away. She knew nothing of the tryst and only loved him more for his tears, mistaking them for overwhelming joy. She was a rebel and told him to explore other women, believing in an adage she’d read on sentimental mugs and posters about loving something and setting it free. She told told him to explore other women fully believing he never would; believing she was already perfect for him – he had confessed as much to her their very first night together, a whisper exhaled post-climax in her ear but she pretended she did not hear him, not wanting him to know that she knew he was conquered. She was perfect for him and there was something about him that made her feel perfect. From the Dominican they flew back to Melbourne, and when she went to Surfers’ Paradise to meet her father he stayed in the city alone and began sleeping with another girl, this one a little older than the last one but still young. He liked how he felt more powerful than the girl. He liked how the girl made him feel more powerful than her and how the idea of breaking her heart made him feel like man. After six days with her father she returned to the city and knew right away it was over. She could tell by the way he delayed their reunion – even though it was just by an afternoon – and so at that evening’s rendezvous she folded her hands on the bar, sitting very straight, facing forward instead of facing him. She was flippant, ordering pints and only making eye contact with him when the glasses arrived, lifting hers, smiling, and saying Here’s to our last beer together. He was enraged. What he had wanted was to have a secret, and even that she had denied him. In truth she knew nothing of his new little girl, but if she had she would have been more offended by his choice of partner than of the affair itself. In truth what she would have resented is how his choice of woman was so dramatically different than she, and was so dramatically different in the most painfully revealing sorts of ways. But really her own doubts had sprung up in Surfers’ Paradise, and believing she had heard same on the phone in his voice she didn’t want things to linger. She had plans. He was furious. In an instant he knew he cared nothing for the girl. And was certain that he hated her, and was certain he would stay with the girl just to spite her, aware of her preoccupation with her small breasts and her age and he would love the girl to spite her, because he hated her, hated her, hated her. And it is in the same bar that they see each other next, not four years later and he with a child more than three. When she learns this she laughs – she doesn’t smile, she just laughs – and with that laugh and with her looking so distinctly single still...and he with his fat son and his wife – who had just cut off all her once-blonde hair...with this his own daydreams of this moment have turned instantly to venom. And with her head flung back like that he wants nothing more than to crush her quaking throat. But instead he feigns commitment and departs as soon as possible, surprising his wife with his early return and yelling at her for nothing, then just as abruptly taking her into his arms, holding her tight, and crying for second time in his adult life. The Driving Range
I don’t know why my father couldn’t hold a job cause he always seemed to be working. There were some months of treasuring Thursdays, his day off at the hotel and a few hours with him after school. Sometimes we’d eat out on Thursdays, but my dad said he was always eating out. He liked my mother’s cooking. But he left the hotel and we moved again, this time to Columbus, Ohio. We were coming from down south, I brought with me an accent certain to get me ridiculed. I tried to hide it. I grew up in apartments. Sometimes they were courtyard types, sometimes bigger buildings. We had a dog and that meant we were held to a certain standard of living. Blame the dog. We were generally relegated to some outskirt, our particular building or complex bordering: A development yet to be built; a freeway; the backside of a shopping center. But in Columbus, there was the Driving Range. We called it The Golf Course, and my mother and I both felt very proud. It wasn’t open much, and I’d crawl under the fence like a million kids before me – mostly older – whose trail of wrappers and broken glass felt not like blight but like treasure. The Golf Course was magical, elegant. I’d find things there. I’d find balls and I’d put them in box beneath my bed. I found a broken ball that was something new entirely, something amazing and mysterious and long. Once I found a twenty dollar bill. Twenty dollars. The Golf Course was mine. It was my kingdom. I’d take the teasing at school so long as I got to hurry home and rule the grass and dirt. There were broken vines in the fence that felt like serpents. There was an old broom I’d ride like a horse, knowing no one was watching me. I’d bring the dog, he was a horse too, a wild one I tried to catch mounted upon my broom. I’d catch him too. I was only there once when the place was actually open. My father took me, we bought a bucket of balls or maybe it’s called renting them and I watched while he went from happy to frustrated to downright defeated, swinging at those stupid balls. It was as if they were people, telling him what he couldn’t do, and him proving them right. I didn’t try, it didn’t look like fun, but then he didn’t let me either. Walking home he told me: Stay away from that place. I did, too. We moved to Lexington a few weeks later. I Think of You as Heaven
You clipped my wings. You clipped my wings, you brought me home. I used to love the world. I used to love the world but I love you even more. I want to be with you. I want to be like you: Soft. This is where you are/this is where I want to be. You are so soft. Love clipped my wings. Do I love him because he is mine or is he mine because I love him? I think of you as heaven. I grieve for you in tides. Love clipped my wings and it takes so long to make it home walking/running. Once I would have flown but a heavy heart is not so easily lifted. A heavy heart is not so easily lifted and my feathers have been cut. These days, no moon but I know for certain that the moon will come back. These days, no you, less faith and so much more gravity. (I grieve in tides.) I think of you as heaven. If I am very very good you are where I go when I die. Running/walking/wingless, like a moth to the moon in search of you. Running/wingless/walking, if this kills me. Lives for Love
He lives for love. Part of her admires this. He left her standing at the curb outside The Blake Hotel in London having told her to fetch her own cab; he didn’t love her any more. She supposed the ending had been coming but still it seemed so sudden, her with her bags at her feet and the smell of grapefruit soap still on her skin; their dinner at Nobo still repeating on her. She half expected to him to show up at her gate, weeping. It had happened like that before in Guatemala. They had both been very tired. She hates to think the issue was his allowance. She had wanted him to feel free, to be with her of volition rather than pure usefulness. She had wanted him to feel manly. She knows she’s better off but shivers to think of his return to Brazil wooing the other woman with her money. She’d known there was one. She hadn’t really cared. For now she doesn’t cry but sleeps so hard on the plane that they have to wake her up when it lands. Perhaps there is some consolation in the fact that the other woman is the one he married. They are dining in Sao Paolo when he tells her this, she there on some business, his email address unchanged. Readying for tonight, she had prepared herself as if to sleep with him, but seeing him there is no urge to, none at all. He seems awkward in the sort of place they had once seemed to live in. He gushes over rather poor Brazilian sushi, telling her: I haven’t had it in years. She orders high-end red wine, his favorite, even though it clearly does not go with the meal. Italian wines are over-priced in this country. He drinks four fifths of the bottle. He protests but she insists on having her driver drop him home. It’s a fairly long ride and he is drunk. His English has become choppy. I have three children, he tells her, please come up to meet them. Her driver waits for her. She climbs four flights of stairs. It is the chaos of the apartment that strikes her more than the tiny scale of it, or the heat. He had always required such order, a trait he had blamed on his astrological sign but indulged rather seriously with perfectly efficient packing and the wiping up of sweaty beverage rings from the surface of glass or glass-covered tabletops in some of the world’s finest hotels. Two damp girls sit before a television and do not move when they walk in. A little boy is asleep, sprawled out on the floor. The wife looks at her and smiles, nodding, yells at the husband in Portuguese too fast to comprehend, then turns to her again, looking briefly into her eyes before casting them down like a servant. The wife is quite young and thus is pretty. The husband tells the wife: She is my business associate. This is business. He taps the girls and points, telling them to say hello. They wave and turn back to the set. He wakes the little boy who cries and hides his face before being handed back to his mother. He walks her downstairs, where her car is waiting. He opens the door and she hands him all the money on her, a few hundred dollars. This is just how this started, she thinks to herself. He puts his thumb on her chin and turns her face toward him, a gesture she only now remembers. He moves to kiss her. She lets him then says good-bye. She has her driver circle the block so she can watch him. She has seen this precise, particular strut of his before, then too through a car window when she left New York City a day before him. Then too she had handed him something and watched him unguarded as she drove away. Minneapolis #127
Did I fall in love with it because it is mine? Or did I make it mine because I fell in love? It’s not that I’m like the others so much as I love how others are; every inch, every leaf and living beneath the trees: Shelter inherent, weather terrible. Is it really so wonderful or am I just in love? There is no place or thing that is universally desired yet here I am, transplanted and taking root. And taking something else, more, and taking it with me when I go. I told him too, I encouraged him. He said: You people there. You’re all so prideful. He was right, in my case it was true and I’m not the only one. Do we know some secret? There is no universal truth. Maybe it’s just that we found each other, settled here. Have you stood in air so far below freezing and have you heard in dense air the voice of far away? Have you huddled inside when it was dark before dinner and felt grateful for it, for the dark, freeing you from spiritual obligations the day seems to carry? Have you seen the northern lights? Have you praised the lack of insects only to become frightened by this and have you seen the sun go down over water, ten o’clock at night? Have you lived beneath trees, not giants, just normal ones, about the age you’d be at your death if you could live forever. Minneapolis #126
The wind bangs the window and sounds like jets, like travel, like motion like oceans. Like aches. Wind is crying, hysterical. I ask it what is wrong but it can’t hear me over the noise of itself. I tell it: Air feels no pain. I tell it: When you are still, it will end. Wind stalls briefly, just long enough to hear. It says: The greatest pain is infliction. Look what I’ve done to leaves. The greatest pain is collusion. I carry something bitter with me and tomorrow you will shiver. I say: There is no pain in apathy. Do you even try to stop yourself? Wind says: This is different than addiction. It’s damnation. I want to stop but I cannot. I am borne of the war of temperature. I am borne of the war between light and dark. I inflict, hapless as a soldier. I tell wind: You are too hard on yourself. Certainly you have brought relief too. I have seen you fan fires yes leaving little but bones but it is you too that brings the water; that brings rain. You have eased me during heat waves. I have begged for you. I have longed for you in such a way that I have used machines as your substitute like some form of environmental masturbation, me doing for myself what you do for me, or trying to. I know that this is sorry but I have missed you just that badly. I have wanted what you and only you could deliver to me. You and no one else. Wind says: The greatest pain is to inflict. Look what I’ve done to you. Your pain would well be my greatest mistake if it weren’t for your longing. Because your still wanting me after all I’ve done to you, well. I can’t tell if you’re kind or pathetic. I tell Wind: When you feel mournful for the pain you’ve caused it makes me love you all the more. Knowing I am your great mistake makes me feel almost good. I like that you must look upon me. I like being kind. There is both charity and vengence is me. I’m being good but I still get my way. Wind bangs against the house. Its pause was only briefly. It lost me somewhere between Kindness and Nothing. Wind lost me somewhere. It doesn’t pay attention. It left me somewhere between. Kindness. Nothing. The King
When he was young gay men would always pester him, and this left him a bit uptight about that. Looking at him now it may be hard to recognize that he was once really beautiful, absolutely beautiful, the kind of beautiful that people break rules for; the kind of beautiful that lets a person get away with murder. But he wasn’t bad, and he wasn’t lazy. I won’t say he wasn’t conceded, I remember him peering at himself in the mirror for what seemed like hours at a time and once beside the pool he made an eagle out of band-aids and taped it to his chest, burning it in, or rather, shading it onto him. He was the kind of guy who could get away with something like that. He was the kind of beautiful that people called Kind. He was the kind of great-looking that people called Deep, and Creative, and a thousand other attributes that people apply to the most handsome among us when really they are merely usual, typical and of generally average intelligence. But he actually was pretty nice, and while not particularly deep or creative that I know about, he was smart, too. He had the chance to get smart – teachers of both genders fussed over him, charmed – he had the chance to get smart and I guess he took it. He had fun with it all, the eagle on the chest for example and the attention of many, many girls. But he fell in love young, and married her, and they are still together even after all these years. He’s not beautiful now, why, scarcely even average but he was beautiful then. He could have had anyone. The people who knew him before still think of him as he was. Now he’s bald and sort of fat but less fat than he has been because of the heart attack - he quit smoking after that, is careful what he eats. The whole town is looking out for him, he can’t sneak a heater in the alley or order up some bacon without someone being on him. I wouldn’t know where to find the resentment you’d expect, his life the storied one, successful and staying put, still here, still nice, still married. No longer beautiful but no one who knew him then seems to notice. The skinny guy in who runs the diner, he’s looking better than The King at this point for sure, has a prettier wife, thicker hair, was beaten up in high school but never by him. The King doesn’t get his breakfast for free but the guy at the diner tends to bring it to him personally, saying hello and asking after the missus. The King always smiles, turning in the booth and ignoring his hot breakfast to meet eyes and shake hands, usually asking how business is – unless business is slow on a particular morning, in which case he asks about something else. He’s just the kind of person you like to be next to, hard to say what that’s about. It’s like he’s still beautiful even though he isn’t. It’s like he’s famous even though he isn’t. So he can’t sneak a heater in the alley or a Slim Jim or order bacon without someone in this town getting on his case. That heart attack happened pretty young and they all want him to live. Talk to anyone in this town over age forty-five and mention it. They are all terrified of their King dying. Title IX
She is a girl, not a woman: It is hard for you to remember this. It is hard for her to remember this too, and sometimes each of you forgets. She is accomplished and she makes her own decisions. She has fame, and she handles it but there is a part of her that wants a white horse as much as victory; that wants a kiss or flirtation more than the vibes and propositions that have become commonplace. Propositions: That’s how you remember. She’s just a girl. You protect her. You try to. She is a woman, not a girl: She devours girls, she can’t play with them anymore. She devours only some women, which makes her their equal. She is well aware of this. She devours boys, sets her sights on men. She is competitive. Gender goes away. Wisdom stays, skills propel. She’s still learning. She is a woman. She wants to lead. She wants to win. He’s a boy, not a man: He does not respect her. He mocks her. He does this because he can still beat her. He beats her too. He thinks it is because she’s a girl. He’s a man, not a boy: He also beats her, but he knows it is because she is young. His own daughter, nearly her age, dreams of white horses and here she is, this one, with time she will defeat him and he knows this. Part of him wants this to happen. He has a daughter of his own. The Perfect Stroke
You were god right then: There was the ball, a bloodless soulless thing with not an ounce of pity for mankind. So you smythed it. You damned it, you beat it, you made it do your bidding. There was one thing you sought to do right then and you absolutely did it. You smacked that little bastard and when you did you were perfect, you existed in perfection, and that bloodless, soulless ball that had mocked and disrespected you, well, you gave it the whack to atone for all its sins; the whack to atone for the sins of all balls against all men, defying them, demeaning them, making them feel weak and small. But you were god right then. You were god and wrought justice in a single perfect stroke, the kind of stroke that is downright religious. The kind of stroke that makes you a better man. You give the caddy something extra, buy a little something for the wife, just because: Because you are the master, and there’s duty in that. Driving home you hand a twenty to the guy with a sign by the freeway ramp. You even hand him the jacket you didn’t need today after all, the weather was gorgeous, and it was just sitting on the seat beside you. Had you worn it today you wouldn’t have been able to part with it because you’d think of it as lucky; you’d be thinking of it now as the jacket you had worn then, when magic happened. But you didn’t even need that jacket, you did it on your own...on your own with these lucky shoes and shirt and a club you’ll never part with now. So you hand off your jacket and some money to sad-looking fellow not with guilt but with generosity. You feel the difference driving home. Balls have been conquered, man can have new dignity. You were a god, and that makes you a better man. Of Hell and Heaven
When she first started at the nursing home she hated the old people. She went in with the intent to taunt them. They called her an aid but she had no skills really; she called herself a janitor. Now she can remember the first old man that melted her, and why. She thought he was a letch when he asked her to come closer, she stood with her arms folded some feet away, inching. He closed his eyes and breathed in. He said Of all the things to miss what I really miss is cigarettes. She said Well I couldn’t live without mine and he said You call this living? She asked him his brand and he discussed it so sincerely and sensually that she ponied up and bought a pack, half thinking it was because he made them sound so good but half knowing it was something else. She didn’t even ask him for money, she just walked in his room and gave him one. She lit the dying cancer man’s smoke - once, maybe twice a day when she was working. He died about six weeks later and would have anyway but damn the way he lit up when she came through that door; the way she rescued him. She missed that when he was gone so she started talking to other old men, not all but some, not the prudish ones who’d frown at her shoes but the ones that would flirt with her. They would tell her she was too skinny. She liked that. She’d tell them stories of her nights in the bars and unlike your own grandfather they’d never look down on you for getting drunk or waking up with a man it took you a cup of coffee to remember. To them she wasn’t trash, she was goddess. Whatever her life was, at least she had one. They were jealous, sometimes thinking if they had it to do all over again, they’d be freer. If they had it to do all over again, they’d like to have tasted one or two like her. So she flirted. And she flirted with the fantasy that one of them would kick and leave her everything, a fortune, and then she’d be out of there. Knowing that no one with a fortune, or even anything, would be rotting here in this place. It was different with the women. They were fussy and judgmental. They never seemed to warm up, not that she was waiting mind you. But there was one that she liked. She was pretty sure she was an old dyke. She never had a family. That makes it less pathetic when no one comes to visit. She didn’t flirt with her exactly, but she was interested. The old woman said Shoes like that make a woman feel sexy. And when the old woman said that, it was right when she needed to hear that, cause she’d just caught two of the real nurses rolling their eyes at her when they thought she wasn’t looking. Fucking bitches. The old lady would tell her stories. Not stupid stories about how great it was to get your milk delivered or shit like that. Stories about “Active Women”. Stories about how she became a nun cause it was the only way back then for a woman like her to be “Involved”. Stories about Hawaii in the forties and fifties, how she quit the convent because she fell in love with a sailor. Nothing came of it, but she didn’t go back. She said People romanticize silk stockings but really they were terrible, they’d bunch and they’d sag. She said It’s really better now. God has given women true independence and I have lived to see it. That’s what she called the aid: An Independent Woman. That’s one old lady that was really cool, and one old woman that made her feel damn good to be living now, and while she didn’t believe in any bible jesus mumbo jumbo, the way that old lady talked, it made her feel...well, thankful. Or happy anyway, kind of. Her day had been bullshit. Fuck those nurses, little bitches. Fuck the bus driver, fuck the car. She was pissed, yeah. That’s why she was crying. Not sad, angry. She couldn’t help it. She was sure her mascara was smeared. Fuck mascara. So she ducked into the old lady’s room. And she was crying too. When they’d have their little visits, the aid would sit in a chair. Sometimes the lady would sit in a chair too, sometimes just in bed. Today was a bed day. She didn’t look good. In an act that wasn’t just unusual but was in fact, at this juncture, utterly out of character, in a way she never would have imagined she might have and in a way that made her feel nearly possessed, like it was not her, she sat on the edge of the old lady’s bed and grabbed her hand. They were both crying. She lifted the hand and hugged it under her chin and they sat just like that, quiet and wet. It didn’t seem very long but it must have been cause the sun had dropped and was beating in through the window. She was worried about getting trouble. She didn’t rush. She shifted, kind of leaned over, looked the old lady in the eye: Why on earth are you crying? The old lady smiled, then flinched: I’m afraid that there’s no heaven. The aid looks at her shoes, her chipped up nails, says: I’m afraid there might be. Promise
When I was really sad you were really good to me thank you dearly I’ll never forget that and I promise if you’re ever really sad I’ll be that good to you. I’ll be there for you like you were there for me I will be just tell me I promise. You saved me I owe you I’ll be there. I promise. Okay then well I better get going. Get a hold of me? Well I’m really not sure. I’ll drop you a line when I get where I’m going I’ll call you or something now you take care of yourself. I promise. The Last Day of These Old Shoes
I’d caked mud on the bottom when it was still raining. So I left them outside to dry. Still it rained. Then came sun, and nearly drought, and the dirty shoes shrank, and bleached, and filled with the web of a spider I never saw or even thought about until today when I destroyed its home, donning dirty bleached shrunken shoes to the county fair where a misstep into manure or spilled ice cream is likely. The shoes rebel in anticipation of their death, or at least their acknowledged discarding, biting my feet when once they had been so comfortable. They aren’t anymore, and so are easier to throw away. But I don’t throw them away. Home again I peel them from my swollen feet and place them in a bag of old things marked for Charity. Charity, right, my old filthy shoes, as if someone else would want them. I have a habit of such shoe euthanasia, I pretend I am recycling. I take my oldest shoes with me on vacation, intent on not bringing them home. In foreign hotel rooms I leave them for maid, naming my arrogance kindness and saving room in my suitcase for treasures I’ve purchased, sashes and mugs that seem significant at the time but which now see their destiny fulfilled in the same bag as my county fair shoes which will litter the shelves of a suburban second-hand store, the proceeds from which will cover half the cost of a parking meter for the parent of a child running in the Special Olympics. Break My Heart Slowly
You always have something for me to help you with. It’s nearly brave of you to ask. It’s your nature I suppose in a mix of intimacy and distance, affection and malice each more amplified in your own case than mine. Me, I’m the steady one. You tell me your plans and expect me to bend to them. I wonder if I will. You brag to me about your position then come to me with your misery. You always have something for me to help you with. I wonder if I will. If I judge you by your woman you are innocent. If I judge you by your friends, you are false. If I judge you by your actions I should hate you. If I judge you by mine, I should love you. I wonder if I do. He said, “If only I could get there then everything would be alright.” She, being kind, says nothing. My Loyalty is to You
My loyalty is to you. If you want me to like her, I’ll like her. If you want me to hate her, I’ll hate her. My loyalty is to you. My loyalty is to you. If you want to keep a secret, so be it. If you want me to testify, I’ll do it. My loyalty is to you. If you seek a pardon I’ll grant it no matter what you’ve done or done to me. My loyalty is to you. And something else, too: I save you the last bite. I give you my last dollar even though you were only hinting and even though I need it bad as you. I’d starve to watch you prosper. If you want me to like her, I’ll like her. Someday she’ll probably be gone. My loyalty is to you. My need to redeem. Your need for redemption. My need to protect. Your need for protection. Protection, protection, we should have used protection. I had to make a choice. My loyalty is to you. Ferry to Texas
It wasn’t like my mother to say stupid things, but worldly and clever as she was she’d barely left New York City. She said, “When we get to Florida, we can take the ferry to Texas.” My father, who wasn’t as bright as my mother but who had served in the army overseas, laughed at her. My mother punished my father for this the entire drive south and really for quite some time after. My three siblings, all much older than me, made the drive along with us but didn’t stay long, migrating north at first chance to college or other business. None stayed longer than the summer. The house – the last house my parents would ever own but certainly not the last place they would ever live – had much foliage and a swimming pool which seemed very glamorous to me at nine years old. No one used it though, it was too hot and lizards and tiny frogs were often found dead in the chlorinated water. My dad started a new job and my mom was always sleeping. I have very little memory of her there, really only one, passed out on the bed and seemingly carefree while I curled up in the bottom of her closet weathering a storm named Fifi. My mother’s lack of worry actually served as great comfort. We moved from the Florida house into an apartment, and from there we moved to Ohio. I remember driving through the mountains of Tennessee, my mother terrified squeezing my father’s thigh and gasping through the curves. I was also afraid of the mountains. As an adult I’ve been told by my siblings that my mother was institutionalized for months down in Florida, but I have no reason to believe this. They site as evidence the manner in which my mother tortured my father for really of the rest their lives, but what do they know? I’m the one who was there. It’s a dream not a memory but dreams can feel like that. We ride the ferry to Texas, waving back toward shore. |