Universal Memories

It was nature repeating itself

The rain began to fall
I forgot you were in it

It was that you
were not yet a something

Regardless we wouldn't encourage others
to do it

We even left instructions
on how not to do it again

How we were setting the stage
for awkwardness knowing

that it would be awkward
tapping the mic to set up the awkward

look and awkward laugh
whose intent was to relieve

the awkwardness
and to further set up

Something that wasn't expected until
we were actually doing it

Then the moment when
we were actually doing it

Because the door was already open
And we are entering the house

to create what we will be saying
Almost like a hello

Neutron Star

I was looking for a room to rent
and answered an ad from the Collegian
It was in a house off campus
It had been raining and the leaves
were flat against the sidewalk.
They were flat against the bottom of my shoes
and when I walked into to the house I
struggled to pull them off like someone
trying to find edge on a roll of Syrian wrap.
The woman had lived there since she was a child
She was young but her dress and her hair,
and her gloves were old.
She showed me photos
of her mother who had passed recently
and that was why she had a room to rent.
Her mother's room.  The photos were of her
mother standing next to the mantle.
And another in the driveway.
And another in the kitchen
making their favorite cake
marsh-mellow almond.
I suppose it is hard losing
someone so close to you.
I walked by the living room
where a haze hung around a lamp
The air was old.  It smelt like
it came from old lungs.
She asked me,
"Do you like it here?"  The dust
hung heavy on the cushions like
the material on a neutron star.
The earth was heavy and my feet were heavy.
"We can go shopping, for groceries soon."
she said. I felt I was being pushed
out from a funnel. I was spinning.
That a white hot blast of air was behind me.
"When can you move in?" she asked.
"Soon." I said.
Nowadays she calls me once or twice
a month to ask me when I am going
to stop by and sign the lease.
"Soon." I say.
And sometimes I see a number on my phone
it pops up out of the blackness of my screen
At first nothing happens
but then when I know who is calling
a heaviness sinks deep inside of me
deep to the thickness of who I am.
I let it go until it is virtually undetectable
weighed down by my unsigned hand.

And Luckier

The dead could
care less about you or me.
They do not populate our dreams
like we may think:
I am thinking of one episode
where my mother, a shade,
lays down on her side of the bed,
crying silently in her room,
with her flowered night shirt on.
while I a child, calls, "I love you"
to the darken face
that rises like she used to do.
With the same weight I remember.
Why would anyone do that?
My mother wouldn't.

And as some may watch,
the magnificent boob tube of oblivion
life becomes more and more
like afternoon T.V.
that one keeps on
in the background during lunch

Soon it becomes clear
And other ideas, far more greater than
we could think of down here on earth
help to turn the attention elsewhere.
Away from us.

I would not think about you or me if I was dead.

And while we are worried about oblivion
the frozen moment of lengthy eternity
they turn away smirking
at our utter simplicity

that we think of them as watching T.V.
in a pool hall, rowing a boat
or fishing by a beautiful stream.
Or that are standing behind us
in the same room
or hovering over us
giving us subtle hints as
to the way we should lead our lives
like a good loved one should.

My Quiet Witness

Sometimes I wonder whether
my eyes, watery, or my bad
knee ache is that
I kick out the crutches
or was a pretty good runner
who cheated.  The light keeps blinking
like cats in a drowning bag
after my father, driving away
from his wife, my mother, a lost
license, my brother, unable
to breathe just at the end.
The whole bathroom sinking.
Giving no other substitute.
A spyglass hoping to be evident.
A curl in the middle of a book
separating the epic tug
after digging through the music.
God, sometimes I wish I'd
be forgiven long enough
to sit down on the rock I've been stitching
and convey the worn reason
the remainder of the night
looks at us with a labyrinthine eye.
Or the real remembrance of things past
and not the inability to translate the title
beats down on our canvas hearts.
But that is enough
drumming for me tonight.