Room 17475

you press the nurse call button
the button just above the tv channel up button
on the keypad
attached to the cord
hanging over the right side of your bed
and when the red light comes on the console
and the nurse’s voice comes over the speaker
you ask for your nurse
you ask for a tech
you ask for the doctor on call
you ask for another plastic tub to vomit into
you ask for mouthwash
you ask for more gauze to cover your incisions
you ask for them to come stop the beeping of the iv machine
when the line is occluded
when air is detected in the line
when the bolus needs to be changed
you ask for medicine for your nausea
for your pain
for your diarrhea
for the pressure in your gut
you ask for water
you ask for gatorade
you ask for juice
you ask for them to disconnect you from all the tubes
so you can change clothes
and to reconnect you when you are done
you ask for someone to listen to you
you ask why you look 6 months pregnant
you ask for new hats for the toilet
you ask for toothpaste
you ask for new blankets
for new washcloths
and a tub of icewater to cool your face
you ask for ice chips
for new towels
for maxi pads
for new bed pads
for new underwear
you ask to stop falling asleep while you are talking
your head slumping down every 10 seconds
and rising again after 5 to pick up where you left off
you ask for a shower
for chapstick
for lotion
you ask for something to calm your burning skin
you ask them to empty your ng tube tank
so the bile doesn’t spill over onto the floor

and when you finally fade off
into narcotic sleep
the keypad falls
from your hot little hand
and i reach over
and pick it up
and press the nurse call button
and i ask for the scars on your belly to stop weeping
i ask for medicine
that will stop you from seeing people in the room
who aren’t really there
i ask for them to stop your brain from spinning so hard inside your head
i ask for them to take away those scared saucer eyes of yours
when you wake up every 15 minutes and look around the room
and i have to explain everything again
asking you to remember the same details one more time
i ask for them to stop sending 5 different people into the room
in one night to try unsuccessfully to start a new iv
because your veins are collapsing
i ask for them to stop with the ct scans
the enemas, the palpations and the x-rays
i ask them to untangle your intestines
i ask for them to stop pulling at your superglue sutures
i ask them to fix the hard little veins in your forearms
i ask them for atavan
for both of us
i ask them to find the 20 pounds you lost
and the muscular curves of your thighs
i ask them to stop you from thinking i am plotting against you
i ask them to take the iv out of your neck
take off the blood pressure cuff
and the fingertip temperature sensor
i ask them to remove the pic line and the catheter
and while they are taking things out
i ask them to remove from my memory
the rank dark green rotten murky smell of your e. coli infection
i ask them to make me forget the beep of the pca pump
refusing to give you another dose of dilaudid
because you asked for it too soon
again

and then the red light comes on
on the console over your bed
and the nurse’s voice breaks through
asking what i need

and i realize she hasn’t heard anything i said

so then i ask for a second honeymoon
a secluded cabana on the edge of the beach
under palm trees
i ask for a pair of lounge chairs
just outside our door facing the ocean
the front legs of the chairs
at the furthest reaches of the longest waves
i ask for you, brazen, in your red bikini
reclining in the sun with your eyes closed
your toenails freshly painted
and your head slightly tilted towards me
i ask for your sandals and a bright yellow towel
in a pile on the sand by your left side
i ask for a barely read book split open on top of the towel
with a trace of sunblock smudged across its glossy cover
i ask for a fruity tropical drink in your right hand
i ask for palm leaves and a breeze
to scatter the sunlight
reflecting it through the facets of your glass
so it dances lightly across the scars on your stomach
i ask for the smallest hint of a smile moving across your face
arriving and receding with the waves

the nurse’s voice comes back over the speaker
asking
exactly what kind of fruity tropical drink do you want

and i tell her
any flavor will do

that part
is just really not that important
right now
any flavor will do.

toast to steve and adrienne

how brave it is of you,
steve and adrienne, to stand here before us today and state openly
and boldly
and proudly
that you belong together

how brave it is of you to make that statement
after all you have been through together,
because of all you have been through together.

because you have known each other already
through so many ups and downs,
pain and heartbreak,
joy and sorrow.

because you have come to know each other and yourselves through years
made up of moments, minutes, hours, and days of certainty,
because you have come to know each other and yourselves through years
made up of moments of doubt

because those times of doubt that seemed so long and so confusing were the most necessary test of your relationship
those times of doubt were the millions of small assignments that you gave yourselves
because you wanted to be as sure as possible
that you belong together

you took so many steps forwards and backwards,
so many slides to the side
so many twists and turns

and now you have reached this point
together
here
today
in front of all of us

and you are brave enough to know in your hearts that nothing is ever 100%
you are brave enough to know we never get that luxury. . .
you are brave enough to know that 100% isn't really perfection

instead, you are brave enough to know that 99.99999% is the true perfection
you are brave enough together to know that last .000001%
that last tiny little infinitesimal sliver
that the world always leaves out of perfection
that is what is left for both of you to work on together
for the rest of your lives

that is why we are here
with our promises of love and support
and our own individual and unique
missing tiny little infinitesimal slivers of perfection
we are here to let you know you are never alone in your work

steve and adrienne
you are brave enough to know
that you know each other better than anyone else in the world knows you
that you know you belong together

that is brave
that is perfect
that is you, steve and adrienne costello
on this day
and for the rest of your lives

all the happiness in the world


(written with melissa)

time hasn't changed

time hasn’t changed
even half
of what it promised to

- “ohio airplane crash” by joe henry


we walk out to the garden
dirt still under my fingernails
from the weeding last week
and nothing that is coming up
among the clumps of dirt
is anything that we planted
last spring

all the time we spent
looking at seed packets
combining and collating colors
by row
in our minds
laying out the markers and tags
kneading the seeds into the earth
pulling the blankets of dirt
back over their bodies
you drifting over like a tender cloud
with your silver watering can
in july when the rest of the yard
was cracking in the heat

none of that made the difference
we thought it would

every morning
we wander out to the back yard
together or alone
and wonder at these amazing creatures
the lilting yellow petals
the tight lilac buds
the prickly sticky green stems
all of these random creatures
we must have disturbed
and roused and rattled and woken
with all of our digging

and maybe all that digging
is the only thing
that really matters

Whishnuddha

I created this image for Melissa to help protect her from nightmares when she was doing her genetic counseling internship in Denver over the summer. It has been my job to wake her from them, and with us apart, I figured she needed a protector.

Whishnuddha is the Supreme Being or Ultimate Reality for resting humans and a manifestation of Caninus in the traditions of Somnolence.

The Doghavad Gita describes Whishnuddha as the all-pervading essence of all resting beings, the master of and beyond the past, present and future, the creator and master of all dreamed existences, one who supports, sustains and governs the sleeping universe and originates and develops all elements within. In the Purinas, Whishnuddha is described as being the color of gold, six-armed and two-legged, holding a lotus, sword, conch, chakra, bread, and squeaky plush duck.

Whishnuddha iconography:
• His six arms and two legs indicate his all-powerful and all-pervasive nature.
• On his chest is the dogbhana charm, suspended on a golden chain, symbolizing his commitment to mortal humans as well as the location of his earthly form.
• He stands in his food bowl, from where the richest happiness of sustenance is created.
• His earring represents the infinite cycle of life and the endless universe of restive sleeping imagination.
• A pattern of tangled vines commonly shown in the background if images of Whishnudda symbolize the tangled essence of the human subconscious, while the symbol of Whishnuddha clearly in the foreground shows his dominance over the organic growth and confusion of dreams.

Whishnuddha holds the six attributes associated with him:
• A conch shell, held by the upper left paw, represents Whishnuddha's power to create and maintain the spiral cycles of sleep and dreams in the un-woken universe.
• The chakra, a sharp-spinning discus-like weapon, held by the upper right paw, symbolizes the rested, purified, and spiritualized mind.
• A sword, held by the lower left paw, symbolizes Whishnuddha's divine power over any evil forces present in the universe of dreams.
• A lotus flower, held by the lower right paw, represents spiritual liberation, Divine perfection, purity and the unfolding of Spiritual consciousness within the individual while they are at rest.
• A slice (or loaf) of bread, held by the most upper right paw, symbolizes the richness and fertility of the cupboard of human life.
• A plush squeaky duck, held by the most upper left paw, represents Whishnudda’s power to balance alertness and diligence with leisure, cuddling, and nattering.

the only word i need

i look over at you
you driving the last half mile before the exit
where our quarter pounder with cheese exists
the one we both convinced ourselves we deserve
at exactly the same moment
without mentioning it to the other
and i think about you
the word "perfect".

my hand grazes your shoulder
as i walk past you
in saturday morning mid-putter around the house
moving on to fix some small thing
that we have both been noticing needed fixing
and the look i see in your eyes
as you turn your head to look at me
makes me think about you
the word "loving".

i watch you
cutting zucchini and making tiny puff pastries
for all of your fellow students
in your graduate program
the pile of ingredients and dirty dishes
and finished works of art in constant flux
on the kitchen counters
and i think about you
the word "selfless".

you are stretched out on the living room floor
buried in your binders again
absorbing reams of tangled proteins
and inheritance charts and psycho-social ramifications
misspellings in the recipes that make us who we are
and how to explain them to sick and dying people
and which words show the right evidence of your heart
and make the kind of difference you know you can make
and i think about you
the word "brilliant"

you have pulled the sheet
partly off your body in the morning
when i stop by to kiss you
and let you continue sleeping
before i go into work
and the intensely peaceful look on your face
as the fan gently flutters your hair
and the way your breasts look
nestled into your arms
makes me think about you
the word "beautiful".

the shape of the muscles in your legs
and the natural float to your steps
as i struggle behind you to run at your pace
on our "long run" past the tennis courts
the wisdom and the grace of your body
makes me think about you
the word "sexy"

i see you
i see so many of these tiny moments
and i hold onto
so many of these words
i watch you
and i want to make love to you
i want to make babies with you
i want to burrow down
into the depths of your soul
and feel its warm wings wrap around me
and sing me to sleep
i want to hold you while you cry
and stroke the hair back from your face
and kiss you until i find your smile again
i want you to fall asleep
and to wake up every day in my arms

and sometimes i do some of that
and sometimes only some small part of that
and sometimes i pass by onto the next thing
that needs to be done at that moment
without doing any of that
and leave you where you are
doing almost exactly what you were doing
before you noticed i was watching you
but all of those things and so much more
wash over me in that moment
all of those things i want to do
in that moment
i have lived them
and i have known them
and i want to do them again and again
and that makes me think about you
the one word "forever"

and that one word is almost
a perfect way to end this
almost
because i cant help myself
but to reflect it back onto you
and wonder if i could choose a word
one word for you to think
when you looked at me
no matter what i was doing
no matter if i was sleeping or awake
chasing the dog around the kitchen table
teasing you about spilling food on yourself
dancing awkwardly on purpose
trying to make you laugh
and the only word i come up with
is this one word
"worthy".

Remembering, once removed

-- For Mam maw and Pap paw Fite

I remember you telling me
Pap paw wanted to buy a ladder
when he came home from the hospital
just two weeks before he died
and somehow that made sense to me.
Like he wanted to get a head start on his ascension
like he wanted to get back to work
sharpening chainsaws
and building houses.

I remember dancing with Mam maw
to a song on a Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys record
in her living room and
how much it meant to me
that it meant so much to her
and how she remembered that about me
even later
after you and I divorced.

I remember the ice storm over Christmas
and covering Pap paw with my body
against the falling branch
that just missed us
falling next to us onto his driveway instead.

I remember the dream he had
when he was in a coma
(the coma your parents called sleep
so you wouldn’t worry about him),
the dream where he was trying
to take a nap on a dock --
a dock on a lake somewhere
he knew as a boy maybe --
and these guys wouldn’t leave him alone.
They kept pushing and pulling at him --
for the week or nine days he was in the coma –
and then finally he woke up,
and those guys were probably the doctors.

And the nap he wanted to take
Was probably the same nap
Mam maw had been trying to take
Ever since Pap paw finished with the ladder.
But your dad and your aunt --
and your mom and you and your brothers
and your cousins and your neighbors --
kept keeping her awake
because they couldn’t bear to lose her, too.
But she finally
managed to sneak off somewhere quiet
where she could relax just long enough …
You tell me the reason
Pap paw lived so long
in the hospital before he died
was that his heart and lungs were so strong
and that your kidneys and your liver can fail
and you can keep living --
but your heart or your lungs have to fail
before you can die.

And as I think of Mam maw
and about her breathing slowing down
like you described to me --
the way the breathing slows down as you are dying --
I can only imagine
that her lungs quit working first
because I remember how strong her heart was.

And your dad still has the ladder
that is now -- exactly, to the day -- a year and a half old.
And the house next door
that it leans against
is now -- exactly -- just a house.
And all these memories that we’ve threaded to each other
are twisting and waving in the breeze
and the ends of some of them
are now buried in the ground
and sometimes they pull on us to lull us to sleep
and sometimes they push on us to keep us awake --
and we aren’t sure why we need that ladder
or what song it was that we were dancing to
or exactly why the branches on our family trees
are falling or bent or broken in the ways they are --
but we always end up knowing something more
about someone else’s kidneys or their liver or their lungs
and maybe something, too, about our own heart.

(special thanks to heidi fite for her contribution and editing)

When I once again realize I am the luckiest man in the world

Out in the garage
Working on my motorcycle
Using the 6-piece ratcheting box end wrench set
To tighten down the upper triple clamp bolts
I set the lift stand to raise the back wheel
To adjust the chain tension
I am listening to this American life on the radio
The space heater whirring quietly by my feet
Our dog comes out to check up on me every half hour

I pull the sparkplug to check the jetting
Remove the skidplate and change the oil and filters
The seat comes off with a single dzus fastener
And I remove the air filter
Turning the wingnut until it releases from its seal
Then I clear an area on the workbench to clean it
Spray new filter oil on it and let it sit and soak in
And in all of this cleaning and adjusting
And tightening and oiling and puttering around
All I can think about is my wife
Visible every few moments
through the open garage door as she works in the kitchen
peeling and cutting and mixing food for dinner
I catch a glimpse of her smile
And I see how her happiness mingles with the kitchen lights
How it leaks out through the dividers in the window glass
like fingers stretching quietly out along the driveway
Beckoning me to come back inside.

the purest evidence - cover

litany after Billy and Jacques

You are the pillows on the floor
The pie crust and the apples
You are the sticker on the window of your car
and the christmas lights on the trellis
You are the soft blankets and the bobby pins
and the tennis balls hiding in the forest

However, you are not the crumbs on the counter
The washrags on the stairs
Or the goldfish hiding in our backyard pond.
And you are certainly not the noises
Of settling dishes in the cupboard at night
There is just no way that you are that noise.

It is possible that you are the squirrels playing in the grass
maybe even the small herb garden
but you are not even close
to being the wind among the evergreens

And a quick look in the mirror will show
that you are neither the colander in the cabinet
nor the whippet asleep under the covers

It might interest you to know,
speaking of the plentiful imagery of the world,
that I am the rumbling of the motorcycle engine

I also happen to be library book on the mantle
the chocolate syrup at the bottom of the coffee cup
the post it note in the kitchen
and the toolbox in the basement

I am also the first ray of the sun
and the swirling eddy in the river
But don't worry, I'm not the pillows on the floor
You are still the pillows on the floor
You will always be the pillows on the floor
not to mention the pie crust and--somehow--the apples.

she asks

Do you know what my favorite part
of that poem was?

It was the part where the metaphor turned
And its hands began trying to find
The edge of the curtain
To pull them back
And show what it was
You had been getting at
in all those lines before

It was the part where your mouth
Stopped working properly
It was the part where your chin
Didn’t move in exactly the right way
And your lips curved a bit late
To form the sound of the words on the page

It was the part where your eyelids
Became a little heavier
And a little less focused

It was the part where your heart
was getting in the way of your words
And it was trying to say
Two things at once

You were to reading the words to the poem
You had written
And at the same time
You were describing the wings
You saw unfurling from my shoulders

sitting next to you in church today

for melissa

I felt the vibration of truth from something that was said
And it wasn’t the truth that caught me off guard
It wasn’t the truth that was important
At that moment
What was important
Was that I felt what direction the vibration came from

When I was younger I explained away this tingling
As a ghost passing through my body at that moment
But that wasn’t it, really
It was about why a ghost was passing through me at that moment
It was about what that ghost was saying to me
And what I had done to set it all in motion

Later I understood it as the truth
The realization of something that was
Something simply was so perfectly true
That it set off these windchimes in my body
And in creative writing class when someone wrote something
That was a breeze enough to set them off
I told her it was the same feeling you get
When you bite a spoon
That metallic touch sets something off in your skin
And it flows through your body so quickly
But you can’t stop it
And you can’t help but feel it and give it your attention

That’s how it was in church this morning
How it made me focus
Because I don’t remember what the minister was saying
I don’t remember which verse he had displayed on the screen
I know it was after the juggling
And I know it was before he sat on the bed
And talked about ultimate fighting

But all I remember about that moment was that I understood
Physically for the first time
That the vibrations I felt came from a specific place
Because each wave that passed through me as I sat there
Each wave that I held onto and savored before I let it pass through
Each one came from my right side
It came clearly from where your body touched mine
It wasn’t simply you being in my life
It wasn’t everything being so perfect that let me feel these things
It was you
Purely and simply you

And I thought about the day at work
When I was playing with my ring
Taking it off and putting it back on
And feeling that vibration every time it touched my skin
How I lost it when I took it off
And got it back when I slid it back over my knuckle

And I thought about how I remember you
And how I remember us when my ring knocks up against something hard
How it sounded on the metal railing at the baseball game
How it sounded against the wrench when I was working on my motorcycle
How it always sounds different
How it always reminds me of the same thing

And sitting there in church
Thinking about those sounds
The different tones and vibrations that move through my body
Since you are in my life
And that I am in church
And maybe that is why my thoughts turned back to god
And how he is so different to everyone
And shows himself in ways only we can understand
But only when we seek him out
How he wants us to look for him

And I know then that these vibrations
Have been trying to signal me to something
So much larger than myself
For such a long time
Something so much larger than ghosts
So much larger than metal spoons
In so many ways
Like when I open the door for our dog to go into the backyard
And get busy making a cup of coffee or doing the dishes
And forget that he is outside
And he stands at the back door for minutes on end
With his nose pressed against the seam
Where the door meets the doorframe
And he could open it if he pushed
But he doesn’t
He waits until something tells him I have forgotten
Then he whines
And how long and how loudly he whines I am not sure
I only hear the last one
The one that reminds me he is there
The one that reminds me I have forgotten him
And it is that something that changes in the volume
Or the pitch
Or the timing
That wakes me back into his life

It was that same change today
Sitting next to you in church
That woke me back up
That finally clicked and made me turn around
And see what had been waiting for me
Like realizing you had to let your dog inside
And at the same time realizing
You didn’t have a dog
But there he was
At the back door
Whining a bit
Softly
Maybe gently scratching at the door
Eyes intent at the thin line of light
Where the kitchen leaks out into the yard.

honeymoon happiness management

Put the big rocks into the jar first
Then the smaller ones
Watch how they filter around the larger ones
Settling down in the bottom
As far as they can go
Then the gravel
Each smaller size filling in the spaces
Finding their way into the places
Only they can occupy
The sand comes last
The same sand you felt all week
In between your toes on the beach
The sand you shook from your towel
At the end of the day
The sand from the floorboards of the jeep
And sift it into the jar
Through your fingertips
See how the first few grains
Slide all the way to the bottom
See how much room is left
How much sand can still fit into the jar
And even as it moves up to fill all the spaces
As it gets close to the top of even the largest rocks
The ones you dropped in first
And after almost two years
You wonder is the top of the jar reaching higher
As if by someone’s hands
Spinning it on a wheel
Holding its sides and encouraging them upwards
Because you keep finding more stones
Of all sizes
And always
Every day
More bits of sand
And you never run out of room

And as you watch one small stone in particular
arc and bounce its way through the water
and larger stones in the jar
as you watch it find the perfect place to rest
you are able to finally stop wondering
If there is enough room for all of this
For all of your happiness
For the rest of your lives together.

breakfast 23 days before

thinking about our wedding vows
thinking about how your eyes
and your smile
have become fixtures of my universe
thinking about how hard it is
to see my waffle through all these tears.

Jumper’s urge

there is a theory
that every time you stand in a high place
on top of a building
at the edge of a cliff
or at the railing of a bridge
and look down
there is some small part of you that wants to jump
that wanting is jumper’s urge

every day
for the past year
I have been with you
I have had that urge

I look over the edge
so many stories high up in the air
and I don’t see the ground below
I don’t see a narrow sidewalk
rows of parked cars
or jagged rocks and breaking waves
I don’t see muddy river water
winding around the pilings of a bridge

I look over the edge
and I see us
I see us with our arms around each other
we are looking off into the distance
my fingers are intertwined in your hair
your forehead is pressed against my cheek

but I can’t see what is welling up
inside our eyes
I can’t feel your hair in my hand
I can’t see which one of your thousands of smiles
Is spreading across your face
And I can’t see exactly what it is
we are looking at
what it is out in the distance
in front of us

today
I step off the edge
and I am falling
and it is only now
as I am tumbling through the air toward us
feeling the force of the wind against my face
my eyes watering
my chest too tight to breathe
it is only now
that I feel your fingers slip in between mine
it is only now
that I feel your heartbeat
in the palm of my hand

i cannot disappoint you - cover

Walking back to Leiden Centraal

Walking back to Leiden Centraal
past midnight down the empty main street
angled, bricked, wide enough for all the feet
the bicycles, the scooters, the shopping
Just light enough this early in the morning
knowing we wouldn’t make the 12:08 bus back to the hotel
and then in the distance ahead we heard a flock of bicyclists
and the light Dutch chattering they made
as they fluttered past us,
their words were animated and utter nonsense to us,
but we heard them as the perfect chirps
and calls of birds we knew
and knew we couldn’t understand
and knowing that not knowing the language
Was what made the moment so perfect

That is the memory I want to hold onto
the spontaneous metaphor
and you by my side with your dead tired feet
me with a swollen lip and you with a cold
our bellies full of pasta and chocolate

open

it is that you are willing to believe your parachute will open
that you need to jump out of the plane
that the ground will be solid
and i will be there with you
because you know you are already floating
through the sky
you feel me tethered to your back
you know we have pulled the ripcord
and when you look up
you see the parachute streaming up out of the pack
and the air hasn't caught it yet
hasn't opened it up yet
and pulled us back into the sky
but you know that it will
and you are looking up at the thin streamer of fabric
like you look up into my eyes
when i hold you in my arms
and even if there were no air in the sky
the parachute would open
just from you looking at it that way.

holding you this morning

you cried on my shoulder
and our hearts beat at each other
like prisoners in a slave ship
down in the hold
in tiny cramped quarters
strong people from different tribes
with different languages
triyng to synchronize their words
to learn each others tongue
in the darkness
and the tears
planning the rebellion
for the next time
they would be brought up
on deck
for exercise
the next time
they would be dancing.

letter 8.26.04

i hope this email finds you in better spirits than the last. lying here on the beach in the cayman islands, while relaxing, is at the same time dreadfully boring without your presence. the small brown women rubbing suntan lotion on my body are pleasant enough, but i have become so hopelessly spoiled by the overwhelming catharsis of your touch, that they may as well be mongrels tearing at my flesh. the drinks, while cool enough, have absolutely no effect on my thirst. i long for just one sweet kiss from your lips to quench my desires, and cannot wait to return home to your arms. i count the days we spend apart, cutting a small notch into the arm of my beach chaise with the corkscrew the waitress left behind, and i have also decorated the slats of the seat with tiny hearts containing our initials. if i remain here much longer, i fear this chaise will be embroidered completely with my thoughts of you, and i will have to pay for it and bring it home to give to you as proof of how completely and desperately i have been missing you.

suffering unbearably,
charles

email 8.10.2004

i awoke from a 3/4's sleep this morning around 4am to realize i had been caressing and attempting to seduce my extra pillow.
it was the moment when i realized it did not have a head that it, in actuality, was NOT you and i was immediately chagrined, and once again amazed at the deep resonance of your presence that remained even in your absence.

a motel bed in bethany

this morning
you rolled the stone
away from the opening
of my tomb,
raising me
with the softest touch
of your hand
against my cheek.

I need no further miracles
to prove
you are my messiah.

closest to the truth

for andrea

there is this brightly colored ball of rubber bands
this spinning cycling undertow
that churns with wankel engine smoothness
this weave and warp of weeds and vines
growing up through the trellises
we screwed to the wall of the garage

there are these perfect silent hands
moving slowly side to side
smoothing out the seams
moving the rocks around in the stream
until the water sounds are music
these furtive fingers massaging the pulses
in the space beneath my temples

there are these delicate scratches in the hardwood floor
from triple step
twists and turns
and other lines living on my back
where your fingernails traced the voltage of my skin

there is the single solid twitch you make
as you fall asleep at night
and the pillow with the silver fringe
that you hold between your legs

there is this unformed embryo of something
that you might find
if you deconstructed me
saw through the tangled metaphors
untied the semantic strands that i have been hoarding
like coupons and crusts of bread

or closest to the truth
it might be a piece of stone
i sometimes confuse with my heart
a piece of jade
i have polished into the shape of an egg
with this golden tongue

and i am offering it to you
hoping you might have the perfect place
to hide it.

when i reached across the table

when i reached across the table
and saw what was happening
in the reddened edges
of your eyes,
i understood
this one simple thing

i have become your onion.

something as timeless

there are no birds in your hands
only fingers
you are not awake yet
but you can hear the city
beneath your window breathing
in the silence
between your dreams
the eggs you are so careful
not to drop
are hiding deep inside you
and your fire escape
has nothing to do
with fire

visiting

when they fell asleep
he couldnt help but hold her
his arm draped over her side
his cock nestling between
the perfect cheeks of her ass
and every morning he had this pain
in the small of his back
from holding her like that
from not sleeping curled as far
into himself as he was used to
but the pain was only there
so he couldnt forget what he had
gotten to hold in for so many hours
the physical pain of her presence
the empty space she left behind

when they went out
he kept a finger in her belt loop
a hand in the valley of her back
an arm around her shoulders
she thinks he is afraid she might float away
like a forgotten balloon
accelerating into the blueness of the sky
but he knows why his hand is there
why his arm is the string
that holds them together so perfectly
he knows if he lets her go
he would be the one to leave the ground
and she might not be able to stop him
she might not notice until it was too late
he would be fifty feet above her
waving to her as if he were on a train
pulling away from her station
he knows the pressure of her skin
pushing back against his hand is all he needs
to stay where he is beside her

unh huh

he still says it
just like he used to
a hiccup of agreement
just like he did
before he got out of her car
and began to run away
drunk and full of his birthday
steak dinner and champagne
and this other guy
whose name she called him
the morning after he got back
from texas in her halfsleep

he still says it
just the way he would
to let her know he was still
listening to her in the dark there
next to her twitching body
wondering if he could touch her
drifting in and out of coffee
sleep mouth whiskey head

he still says it
just the same way she remembers
but he says it from hundreds
of miles away
in a town she doesn't know

they talk about meeting halfway
playing scrabble
and as they hang up their phones
and the lines click dead
at the midpoint between their lives
the last words they said
add up to some final score
that neither of them are keeping

versions

I.
she finds a small apartment in st. louis for herself and her cat, gets a job at a bookstore and makes a few close friends, he changes the oil in her volvo and she calls her parents every week, at first it is so perfect, and then her cat gets nervous around him, it becomes the same old thing after a while, and she cant get him to snap out of it, he becomes impatient and irritable, sometimes he teases her cat, he leaves poems he wrote for her hiding in places where he knows she will find them, poems about this man who cannot break away from what he has become, about how all the answers to their problems are waiting in a cardboard box in a corner somewhere and how they cant stop looking for it, about how someday they will fly away together, about how to be patient, as if his words could change anything by themselves, as if all he needed to do to get something was to want it this badly.


II.
he leaves everything behind except his motorcycle and some clothes, finds a sculptor named luis in minneapolis to apprentice with, he starts making things again, he builds sculptures that try to express his sense of how fragile he is in the middle of everything, he is sometimes overwhelmed by the sense of continuity, by how his life has twisted around on itself and sometimes it almost chokes him it is so tight, he sees her almost every night, showing up at her door covered with rock dust and shards of metal, bathing in her clawfoot bathtub as she unwinds her day, they learn to dance the charleston and tango, staying out late friday nights when she doesnt work dancing and sweating into each others arms, she looks for grants for the two of them, and they stay up late writing out reasons why they should get money to go away together to foreign countries and write poems about the exquisite pain of the things they cause in each other that they sometimes call love, he buys a set of learn to speak italian cassette tapes and they stay up late repeating the words together to each other, good morning, how are you today, what are you thinking ?


III.
he writes her letters, joking about running away with her, just to see how she reacts, but she doesn't, her letters tremble on as usual, overflowing with images of fire escapes, and motorcycles, and tears streaming backwards from the wind, he calls her apartment when he knows she isn't there and talks to her cat elizabeth, he asks her what she knows, if she ever hears his name slip from beneath the bathroom door as her owner masturbates in the bathtub, elizabeth's answers are all very evasive, she speaks only of the weather and how she doesn't get enough attention, he tries to sound sympathetic, but when he hangs up the phone he feels this strangeness in his neck, a tickling that keeps him up all night coughing, thinking of her in fever dreams that don't let him rest, this feeling that he has only been talking to himself tortures him like a hairball in his throat.


IV.
they go on like this for years, meeting halfway every twelve months, meeting halfway between their lives, some years she has a boyfriend, sometimes he is spoken for, one year she is engaged, on the odd year they are both temporarily taken, but they meet anyway, she dates a man who rides an old bmw motorcycle, he becomes involved with a woman who knows six different languages and jumps out of perfectly good airplanes, she falls in love with a chiropractor, he becomes infatuated with his neighbor, but they meet anyway, they have to share this perfect ache they have been cultivating separately together for so long, this bitter thrill that is the idea they are truly, romantically, eternally star-crossed, why else would they keep meeting like this, why else would they have to live so far apart.

(written with rebecca stewart)

the second part

the second part
says you are too young
to be thinking backwards like this
run away with her
it doesn't matter where
find out what happens
how the story ends
do something, man
there are the keys to your truck
you know where she lives
and how to climb the fire escape

there are the keys to my truck
and between them
and the door of my apartment
is the flexibility of fantasy
and i can see how it twists
and chimes in the wind
always making the exact sounds
i want to hear

the first part
is this string around my ankle
that is tied to you
across these hundreds of miles
it grows taut
until i can almost hear your voice
carrying through the line
i can almost feel you twitching
in your sleep

eventually the string relaxes
like the tide easing away
from the shore
like how your hand fluttered
away from me
on that hot iowa morning
trying to say something to me
that only now
i am beginning to understand

i have become the raccoon

i have become the raccoon
that broke into your green cooler
at the campground
the raccoon that ate
your last two loaves of bread
and the rest of the potato chips

i came home with you
hiding in the trunk of your car
next to the sleeping bags
you were so tired
when you got back to your apartment
that when you unpacked everything
you carried me inside
by the scruff of my neck
and didn't even notice what i was

when you go to bed at night
i creep out from behind the bookshelf
and search for the cooler
trying to remember as i look for it
how to pry the latch open
how to open the lid
and how to eat what i find inside
as loudly as possible
so that you will wake up
and find me
with my head buried
in these things i have found
that you could have only left
for me

anyway

he calls her
one summer afternoon
his call wakes her up out of a nap
and she's not all there yet
and all he says is
i miss you
and she doesn't even have to think
it just comes out
just like that
i miss you too
and they both sit there in the silence
for a moment
as she continues waking up
as she pulls the rest of herself
out of the dreams he interrupted
and then she says
who is this

cuttings

for lilla

the top cut off a pineapple
sitting in on the windowsill
for weeks
and you waiting for it
to take root
not just one time
but over and over again
and each one rotting away
under its stiff green leaves

the golden pathos
stretching its arms around
our apartment in st. paul
so far across the walls
that it had to stay behind
when we left
and when we came back to visit
six months later
you went to get a chair
from our old neighbors apartment
and i didnt go in
but you told me later
how you had seen the pathos
dying in their living room

the succulent i gave you
as an anniversary
that we have left behind in pieces
maybe two years ago by now
and us never knowing
how long it would take to fade
but it grows and sheds its leaves
and starts tiny green buds
where its not supposed to
and still looks ill somehow
and every time i see it
i see the same tired struggle
of growth and decay
i see us turning to each other
looking to see how far the roots
have dug themselves
into the soil behind our eyes.

transom

it is this man
looking in his empty mailbox
for bits of skin and teeth
folded up on paper
skin he can touch
teeth he can feel
clamping down tightly
on his collarbones

he pretends to pull the letter
from the box
tears it open
and holds it in his hands
unfolding it slowly
creasing the folds backwards
so it lays flat
but as he tries to read it
he sees only his hands
held out in the air
in front of him
trying to feel the weight
of the paper
they are supposed to be holding

his hands become agitated
pretending to fold and unfold
and trace lines across a page
that isnt there
they move so quickly
with such force
that the man realizes
they are no longer his hands
they are wild birds
tearing themselves from
the ends of his arms
and flying though the transom
over the front door of his building

the birds fly north
loud and black
with wings the wrong size
for their bodies
and the man rushes outside
after them
shouting directions to them
an address in minneapolis
a name
and something else
that by now
they are too far away
to understand.

surrogate laughter (cover design)

            special thanks to cover model Ethan Lebovics

falling down the stairs

i'm sitting at the kitchen table
trying to end a letter to a friend
of mine when i hear her

yelling to me from upstairs

she says

i think i'm going to fall
down the stairs

she says i'm standing here
at the top of the stairs

i'm standing on one foot
and i think i'm going

to fall

and i'm trying to think of what
else i want in the letter

what i need to say before it ends
and she yells to me

she says

did you hear me

i said i think i am

about to fall down these stairs
and when i do

i'm sure it will hurt me
a great deal

and i don't know how i should
end the letter

what i should write

just before i sign my name
and then i hear her again
saying oh my god

here i go

i am falling down the stairs
thump bump thud

and then nothing

i am just about to close it
writing something like

i miss you.

or i am thinking about you
as you read this

but i stop when i hear her again
saying

i have now fallen down the stairs
she says i am at the bottom

of the stairs

lying here very twisted and broken

i get up out of my chair

take the unfinished letter in my hand
and walk down the hallway

to the stairs

and look

and there she is

standing at the top of the stairs
her arms crossed over her chest
tears running down her face
she says

i think my neck is broken

i can feel a puddle of blood
forming underneath my head

i hold the letter out
towards her so she can see
and i ask her

do you think i should say love
at the end of this.

forwarding

he rolls over and puts his arm
around the thick tangle .

of sheets in his bed

he kisses one of the folds gently

his tongue sliding along the wrinkles
and he murmurs softly to himself
something about this envelope

he is hidden inside

something about fingers prying along the top
ripping it open

and gently unfolding him
dragging him from his bed

he pulls his sheets along with him
he wraps them around his body
and walks out into the street

and then the wind comes

the wind with fingers allover his body
fingers pulling him into the air

and he is flying

he hugs the sheets tightly to his body
ashe murmurs something to himself
about how the words in letters change
as they get closer

to where they are going

about how he is like those words
how he is writing himself a letter
and flying along with it inside him

she sits on her porch

she sends envelopes with pieces of
blank white paper in them

she thinks by the time they arrive
the words will be there

she puts a stamp on each envelope

and addresses it to someone she doesn't know
someone who lives somewhere far away
somewhere she has never been

and she sends them there

the man flying over her house
holding his sheets

finds one of her letters in his hands
and moves them to open it

he lets go of his sheets to open the letter
and the sheets fall fluttering

through the sky like punctured clouds
falling at her feet

she picks them up

folds them and takes them inside

she walks up the stairs to her bedroom
murmurs something to her uncovered bed
about holding clouds of smoke

inside of her heart

about flying thru them every day
and getting used to it

she unfolds the sheets

pulling them across to the corners of her bed
she tucks them in

smooths out the folds

and then she hears something
somewhere in the sky above her
she hears the sound of someone
reading one of her letters out loud
in a sky she knows only by

the things that it drops

when she distracts its hands

with a letter she didn't write

with a letter about this man

flying in the air above a woman's house
a man reading a blank piece of paper
over and over again

about him going to sleep beneath the crisp folds
about him hugging them tightly to his body

as he flies

with her name on it

   

i see a woman i don't know
walking by in front of my house
and i run out grab her by the arm
and drag her inside

i lock the door

and sit her down in a chair
i introduce myself

and say how nice of you
to come by and visit
how are things

she reaches for the phone
picks it up and dials

a nine and a one

before i can get it

away from her

she gets up and heads
for the door

but i throw myself
between them

i say won't you stay
for just a minute

i'l1 make some coffee

i have some fresh strawberries
in the kitchen

i'l1 bake you a cake
with your name on it

and that gets her attention
she smacks her lips and
heads towards the kitchen
rubbing her hands together

i slip out the door

lock it from the outside

walk around to the kitchen window
and watch her as she searches

the crowded shelves of my refrigerator.

one man's treasure

   

i take out the trash

and come back inside

and my wife is getting

into the kitchen garbage can

and she tells me to take her out

and put her with the

rest of the trash

so i pick her up by the

handles of the garbage can

and carry her out

and put her with the rest

of the trash

and she looks very happy there

and i wish i could join her

bu t she tells me

it doesn't work that way

someone has to put you here

she says

someone besides yourself

she says

she cannot move until the

garbage men come

on thursday morning

to pick her up

and take her to the promised land

and then i see what its all about

and ask her

how can she leave me here

all alone with everything else

taking out the trash

every day

thinking of her

thinking of how one day

i took her out with the trash

and set her free

and i see that she is crying

and she is saying she is sorry

that it had to be like this

and how great i was to

do all of this for her

that she knew i would

and that is why

she loves me so much

she keeps sobbing those words

sobbing

that's why i love you

i stand there

looking at her

sitting there in the trash

telling me that's why

she loves me

and after awhile i go back inside

and read the paper

fix myself some dinner

have a drink and go to bed

i don't even hear the garbage truck

when it pulls up in front of my house

i don't even hear the garbage men

setting down the empty cans

on my driveway  

it is this man

lying asleep in bed

dreaming the same dream

all night long

dreaming that he is

naked and running

down streets he does

not recognize

that he has been

seduced by the pure

instinct of flesh

against pavement

pulling the world

from under his feet

he wakes up

to the sound of

running footsteps

going by outside

in front of his house

he puts on his

bathrobe and slippers

and goes to the window

but the street is empty.

he stands at the window

all night long

shifting his weight

from one tired leg

to the other.  

seat yourself

  

you wake up

at the wheel of a car
and you are driving
down the highway
with the radio blaring
the heat on high

and you

wondering where

you are going

you take the next exit
find a truck stop

park in a parking space
five times as long

as your car

and walk inside

you seat yourself
at a table

in a corner

and a waitress
comes to you

and you almost tell
her about how

you woke up in this car
driving down the highway
with the radio blaring

and the heat on high

and you

wondering where

you were going

about how you ended up
in this truck stop

telling your story

to a waitress

she asks what can
she get for you
and you want

to say that all you want
is to know where

you are going

but you settle

for a plate

of ham and eggs

expecting

   

Early in the morning he wakes
me up with the doorbell

My wife has gone to work

so i get up and go to the door

where he is standing holding a package
tapping the toe of one of his boots

on the floorboards

He hands me his clipboard

as he walks past me into my house
and asks me to sign it

The paper is blank

so i ask him where to put my name
and he tells me anywhere

He sits down at the living room table
sets the package on the table

in front of him and fingers

one of the doilies set at his place

He says how something to drink would be nice
so i go into the kitchen and come

back with two mugs of coffee

I set his down on the package

and he quickly picks it back up
inspecting the box for moisture damage
He runs his hand over the spot

where the mug had been

and he looks at me like i'm crazy
he asks what's wrong with me

why am i trying to ruin the package
he brought me

He asks me don't i like it or something
and i tell him i don't know

i wasn't expecting a package
i don't know what it is

so how can i not like it

He sits there for awhile
blowing on his coffee

running his hand over the top
and sides of the box and he says
that some people are happy

to get things like this

He says people send other people things
because they care

He asks me why don't i care
and i tell him i do

but i don't know who sent it
i don't know what it is

and he shakes his head slowly
pushes his mug away on the doily

leans back heavily in his chair and sighs

He says it's not supposed to happen like this
i'm supposed to thank him

tear open the box and exclaim

all sorts of happy things when i see
what is inside

i am not supposed to argue with him
about who sent it or what it is

He looks down at the scuffmarks on his boots
and the floor that is all around them

He puts his weight on his feet

and pushes himself back and out of the chair
His hand moves across the top of the box
once more and drops to his side

as he walks out of my house

He gets into his truck

and drives slowly down the street
his hazard lights still flashing

I watch him from my porch

and when his truck is out of sight

i hear my wife's car coming down the block
bringing her home for lunch

I turn around and walk back into my house
and i see the clipboard sitting on the chair
where i left it with one piece of paper on it
with my name on it

floating in the middle of so much whiteness

My wife walks in and sees the package on the table
She asks what it is and i tell her i don't know

She wants to know who sent it

and when i'm going to open it

and i don't say anything

I don't have an answer for her
and she knows it

She takes the delivery man's mug from the table
and walks into the kitchen with it

saying to me that most people are happy
to get packages.