i return to my dead, disagreeable.
no cloud is the same
as it was, even though
i wish they would be.
or at least the best ones,
the flame-broiled ones
at dusk that hold
the gold gristle of the sun 'round
the edges and cottony down
in the belly, surrounded by a
going-to-die, waning-waning sky
of some industrial-strength hue.
it's all loose, liquid measures to
these eyes, my beloved departed.
are they what they were in the
end, or what they'd become at
the height of their lusty lives?
my mother nearly never
drank, my brother drank
all the time. i'm irritated
by both of these melodies equally.
my want for the one
bled into a wish for the other
and somewhere surf always
meets sand in biting violence.
over and over it clangs
like a struck second hand on a
clock suspended in the back of
a choked classroom.
i return to my dead,
asking them to impress
upon my images some
semblance of truth,
that i might then sky them
for good like clouds
wheeling ahead of the
final storm.
my goodbyes were threadbare;
my chest ached for them
to finally be still as the air between
blades of summer grass;
that they just relent,
and release, so that i
could not be
selfish anymore.
the pain is an inexhaustible
water held in the
atmosphere; it is
the ion charge that
claps unexpectedly while
sleeping, or driving, or
making love, as if they, my dead,
are still hungry, still unfed.
what did i forget to do? what did
my musty memory fuck up this
time that they still must
whisper contempt into these bloodless ears?
i return to my dead,
who brought fermentation
to my life; who devoured the days
between ought and naught,
who offered me a lasting
instrument of secrets
when they moved on and
left me cloud-gazing.
my heart feels like a
plunging stone sometimes;
a breath held two seconds too long; a
deposit of pearls in the pen.
the memories of those who were
is a memory gone the
way of dew in the drought; i'm
turned to salt on the flat and i'm
running to them barefoot, scared,
when all i want is
for them to be as
pretty as sun-burnished clouds.
