Some Antics

breathing room

In the deep-throated darkness,
he makes his way forward,
hands pressing firmly along the walls.
‘Get out of my head,’ he whispers
to her image lingering eerily close to his temples;

the space dense enough as is.

Pride

I’m one of those people
who smiles when they mean to cry.

There’s a grace to it,

the way a handprint dissolves
into tiny beaded capillaries
and eventually disappears
without a sound or trace…

and you tell yourself you’ve won.

for David

It’s been over a decade
since we spread Grandpa’s ashes.
That was the first death.

When it’s hospital beds and oxygen tubes all over again,
your body is only 23 years old,
and no one knows what to do
except grip your withering hand
and beg you to come back, as if you have the choice.

Maybe you do.

It’s awkward how we gather outside your room,
night after night, trying to share the grief, but mostly
wondering at the physicality of losing you;
your father’s posture is the first to go.

Months later, after you’re gone,
they’ll want to know how it happened.
People get curious about these things.

I’ll look up and slightly right,
where that night we found you after the accident
suspends in my mind like a tragic painting.

It may be an uncomfortable silence,
but they can wait, and they will,
while I gently slide that picture aside
to reveal all the glorious ones before it,

stirred newly by their vibrant strokes,
those impressions you left behind,
the wealth of art you gave me,

which I will describe with an almost ethereal duty,
like a committed docent

who loves the artist for his textures and colors,
and is grateful that he lived.

you left

a chill in the air
so steady I can’t get warm…

or feel my heart beat.

this one…

… is about sitting on a Los Angeles balcony, chill Sunday morning, surrounded by rooftops and power lines, sipping blonde coffee, one bleary-eyed neighbor stumbling out his front door with a leashed boxer … he glances up and nods, secretly obsessing over lack of time; no one yet knows that he will be discovered dead in his apartment from a drug overdose. A train sounds nearby … lint settled below the dryer vent stirs in the slight breeze … the black and white cat from two doors down traipses by on three legs … the looming sun bleaches the walkway below like a gateway to heaven.

kamikaze lovers

Of all the ways we destroyed each other,
agreeing to try again was my favorite.

The heady possibilities only lasted hours
(as long as the make-up sex, more or less),

but for that time, that ecstatic play at devotion,
we were victims only to the clock behind our heads,

its ticking barely audible.

xviii.

With no place to go,
it is her thoughts that wander.
She travels lightly.

xv.

Each day at this hour,
the sun is an angry boss
casting long shadows.

xvi.

He hates his routine
but hates more the idea
of confronting change.

xiv.

I pretend to smile.
But like a dog baring teeth,
I just seem afraid.