1 Down, 2 to Go

Seconds after Captain Dan told the story
of Signet #3 (found
floating in the lull water, stomach ripped open with
maggots spilling out) I found
a rat in the trashcan, huge by the look of
him and heaving, drunk-sick on filth or dying.
Kenny removed him with the trash forceps.

This means something, I think, this
haze, the death, its heft. The slow seep of
the senses coalescing. Duck weed
is thick, though, it pushes back what I've
cleared and I can see nothing but the tiny things that
coat everything.

Captain Dan let me drive the Independence out
to the lake for its nightly mooring. I thought my
usual thoughts of becoming something new:
a boat pilot, a diver. Someone who wears white.

I haven't seen a cormorant all summer (bird like
an oil slick on the water) or the coots with their
forward-jerking swim. Geese and shit everywhere.

Months of summer thunderheads to go.
Two signets left and counting.

For Bruce

It was the waterfalls that drew me there, I guess.
They were manmade; I could see their scaffolds,
their ladders, veils of water so thin they looked
more delicate than nature would have cared to attempt.
Nature knows better.

On Governor's Island, hula hoops were prevalent.
And I thought, Oh. Here's where they've gone, those
people with an agenda of interactive art installations.

A happy machine played Simon Says with me
shouting its rainbow notes of agree! and dissent!
And a warehouse attached to an old organ sang
like a big empty whale when I pressed its keys.

Look: I tried to be funny for you, to make this a
light endeavor.

You nurse your chemical drip and somehow
survive with wit while I stare at the hole in my wall
and wish I had put it there.
All day I sit and think about the endless variations
and try not to touch the deadly bottle.

The White Whale

The limo that came to pick us up for the funeral was a brilliant white.
My grandmother hit her head on the ceiling designed to look like stars
winking out of night.
Leopard print, a mini bar, and laser lights.

Hebrew, I'll say it here, enables you to forget your grief
it tries to be so meaningful
it means nothing to anyone.

The casket was heavy, there were too many pall-bearers.
Someone kept kicking my shoes. Your time. Your time. Your time.
Not yet. Slow the fuck down. Don't drop Grandpa.

Do drop dirt and roses. There was a shovel, a custom. Upside down
you dig the dirt and toss it down.
I grabbed a handful, to feel it under my nails.
It was one hundred ten degrees all week, and winds from Hell.

I went to the house of my birth, picked an orange from my father's tree.
The fifteen year old girl said she'd lived in my house
her whhhhhhhole life.

My grandmother hasn't been alone since 1947.
I was the last to leave her. I left, by accident, the orange too.