—DON’T WASTE YOUR WISHES

 

 

Rylan

 

 (after The National)

 

that near-winter

between fact and fiction

you found the envelope

but still pulled open

those crooked shades

of mine

takes a lot of

swallowed but’s

to be a straight-up

saint like that

when it’s so easy

to be blank

confused and cursed

blame it all on me

my excuses my guts

corroded from vats

of imploded cabernet

there’s a little bit

of hell in everyone

but you but god

you’re good too good

for me

it’s hot in here

isn’t it boiling

is that your hand

is that you

picking me up

off the floor

yet again

 

 

  —WE COULD CALL IT EVEN, YOU COULD CALL ME BARELY BREATHING

 

 

 

                                                 Ghost Face

 

 

There’s a ghost face in front of you, a torn patch of sheet, two gouged-out eyes, its smirk a rip in the fabric. You’re just a kid, having turned seven last month, so what do you know?

You do know you’re terrified. When you scream, there’s no sound, just flushed air that comes out, making the ghost face billow and undulate, which is even more frightening.

Then ghost face turns into your uncle Ray, who you found in the garage, on his knees, sucking on your older brother’s zipper.

Then uncle Ray turns into your dad who shape-shifted into a jackknife one Christmas, loopy as a Slinky, before flinging himself into a tree.

It’s one horror scene after another and your bed is quivering and you hope it’s because of your nerves and not that something horrible is causing the commotion.

And then ghost face is back, only it’s your face screwed into a look of revulsion, probably the same expression you’re wearing now, so it’s a set of terrified twins in your room after midnight.

You reach into that deep, hollow pit of you that’s supposed to contain courage, even a thimble of it, and instead what you retrieve are the words your mother said before she left for the last time, her face awash with tears, a tic working overtime on her right eyelid as if a ladybug was stuck underneath it.

You say, “It’s okay, it’ll be all right,” and you try to believe it, even though you don’t really, but it somehow works because the ghost face, which is your face, is clipped free from whatever’s holding it in place, falling like a leaf to the floor where it dissolves and is gone.

Gone for good, you say to yourself. Gone for good, you say and say and say. 

 

—I DON’T SAY WHAT’S ON MY MIND QUITE AS MUCH AS YOU WANT ME TO

 

 

Some Days a Rain Begins

 

Every day he looks for reasons to live. He asks the trees, “Why?” He asks the sunshine. Sometimes a robin will bounce on the lawn as if the grass is electrified and he will ask it, “Why?” but the bird won’t answer and will take flight instead.

 

At night, he counts breaths, often getting to fifty thousand or more. People have pastimes, he thinks, and mine is tallying inhales.

 

When he was even younger than he is now, his mother held him to her bare breast. Feeding time. “I almost did it,” she said. “I almost aborted you,” she hushed, thinking him too young to comprehend.

 

He was precocious, the same way the moon and mountains are. He saw and heard everything the universe availed, often all at once, imploding in his brain like The Big Bang. The collision was impossible to avoid, impossible to explain. It just was, same as the boy was just him because his mother had not aborted.

 

If she had, I would not be here, he thinks, on a regular basis, as habitually as breathing.

 

Some days a rain begins, warm and dewy, as if the mist is perspiring, and he will not think of anything for as long as he can lock down his thoughts, which is never more than a minute.

 

Sitting in the frail rain, the neighbor’s long-eared dog lopes over and noses his elbow until the boy crosses his legs so that the dachshund can nest there. If the boy is quiet enough, he’ll hear the dog say, “This is nice,” or “Do you love me?” If he is tranquil enough, the dog will trust him with its soul and begin to share all of the secrets that no human has ever heard before.

 

 

 

—YOU NEVER KNOW WHEN A TIME IS THE LAST TIME, BECAUSE IF YOU DID, YOU COULD NEVER GO ON WITH LIFE

 

 

      4

 

didn’t sleep

just tossed about

in the formaldehyde

saw a sign  

4 or five

thousand of them

that all said

the same thing

only in Korean

spelled backward

my balance

was complete shit

but I sat up and

blushed in bed

cause I can never

get completely

out of my head

unless I’m numb

vague or near-dead

every dream

was like a

snagged cardigan

loosened yarn

spelling contrition

with too many

extra unreliable o’s

which makes me re-think

what I assume and what

I still need to know

4 oh 4 oh

I’ll see you and raise you

4 more

and if god is god

I’ll meet you

on the other side

 

—COUPLES HAVE TO TALK, THEY SAY

 

 

Nimbus

 

I’ve been thinking

about the exit ramp

that day it rained z’s

and the glass clouded

and how the clouds

outside were the

most gorgeous clouds

I’d ever seen

though I hardly saw them

at the time

and didn’t even remember

them until now

Isn’t it funny how

nothing really matters

when it doesn’t

when the moment’s

close to perfect

and some kind of sacred

It takes turmoil and damage

to see the clouds

the way they actually are—

full of themselves

regrettably out of reach

and ever so slowly

gliding farther

and farther away

 

 

—I GUESS I’M STILL BITTER, BUT I FORGIVE BECAUSE I’VE BEEN FORGIVEN

 

 

Two Syllables and a Vowel

 

Don’t worry,

I’ll find an

appropriate apology

for every time

I wronged you.

If not, the whorls

will coach me,

or if not them,

then the wolves,

werewolves or the

earworms with

their honed pincers

ready to do damage.

You can doomscroll

all day while I

perform a thorough

investigation until it’s

reconfirmed that

one of us must always

be deemed culprit

while the other of us

must always win.

 

 

—DO YOU SEE BOTH SIDES, BECAUSE I DO

 

 

Rebirth

 

Can you see through

both sides of the

lead glass in your

undecided hands? 

There could be thunder

or the sound of a brook

stumbling over stones

and tree limbs,

a beaver or otter,

head only half-submerged,

flat as a skateboard,

coasting by like a missile.  

 

Better you than me

that finds it,

whatever that may be.

I’m pretty sure the clouds

have made you a

map from their shawls,

light shooting off the

kerned waves like rifle fire,

nearby deer puzzled

by so much beauty.

 

Look closer as the

eagle circles, its wings

shattering every awful doubt,

tossing you the second chance

you never knew you had.