A DRINK WITH MY LATE UNCLE
A detail like a grave
won’t stand in the way
of his shaking my hand
on the patio of his rooftop garden.
He was the first to tap
my hidden self on the shoulder
and open our menu of shared traits.
Scotch for him, sangria
for his underage nephew,
a Macanudo from his suitcoat pocket
providing the ash
out of which he rises today,
reminding me how I trailed him
at sundown to the pagan altars
of cathedral-like bistros.
He walked the zig-zag walk
all drunkards walk,
seeing death as nothing
but the aftertaste
of smoldering addictions.
He flicks his stub at a lilac
where it miraculously lands on a leaf.
And when I admire this oddity of balance,
my dropped pencil rests upright
on the eraser end. These headstands
of nature provide an apt setting
for the two of us,
predetermined wind-up toys
waiting for a child to step on them.
And that child is the god
who made all things. And made all things to pass.
This visit to my wayward uncle ends
when his widow opens the slider,
saying she’s swept her hearth’s display
of childhood dolls, and lost
Pinocchio’s screw-in-nose.
The whole point’s the nose, she says,
and asks him to look for it later.
He says he will but he’s lying.
He’ll be here with me. He’ll always be with me.
BILL KNOTT
(1940—2014)
I’m writing this in purple ink
as was his wont,
a phrase that would have put him
in stitches—another cliché
he’d scorn ungently.
I miss my friend,
whose absence could fill a room
with stories
from those whose lives
he touched and tortured,
like the kid
who quit his class
than risk another thesaurus
tossed at his head.
When my son was sick,
Bill wrote
If I believed in god, I’d pray
but since I don’t,
here’s something to help.
Not cashing the check
made him angry, but stormy
feelings were his domain,
remnants of the orphanage
and army.
He changed the name
of his collected tome
on Amazon every day,
settling for
Dropping Sylvia Plath on Hiroshima
and Other Poems.
An unlikely ladies’ man,
lavender ink often leaking down his shirt—
let’s leave him
where I saw him last,
on a bed in a Mass Ave Mattress Firm,
sitting beside a gorgeous novelist,
both of them bouncing
and testing, collapsing
and laughing, then resting.
HER PENCILS
Here are the pencils
she favored:
mechanical, disposable
and bought by the case
to hover above
student stories
among cups, plates
and traces of grease
on the kitchen’s
glass topped table,
her ephemeral scrawl
to be read
by sleep deprived
hopefuls.
How much lead
is left
in this one
whose grooved tip
I twist
to find it writes
of her writing
and her life
in this place,
both erased.
PERSONAL
If anyone knows someone
looking for someone
not yet in the ER
and not recently
off the canvas
after a standing eight,
and if that someone
could care less
if I haven’t
done the steps,
learned to read
an excel actuarial
table
or an x-ray,
please
have them text me
when the sirens
stop
so we can
stay on this carousel
until that second
whirl
called life
after death.
THREE WISHES
A frog along the clamshell path
provides three wishes and a rash.
Fall from a great height or never fall.
On the palm of my outstretched hand,
a kind of welcome, male to man.
Fall from a great height or not at all.
I dreamt I proposed in a hurricane,
and knelt for a marriage that never came.
Fall from a great height or never fall.
The frog must be Sigmund’s son,
he counts that dream as number one.
Fall from a great height or not at all.
We settled in for our nightly fix
of cartoon buffoons in politics;
WBGO
from the radio
on the sill,
and a puppy drained of its free will.
Fall from a great height or never fall.
I wanted you to take my name.
My frog friend says he’s not to blame
for claiming that as number two.
I make a list of my lives with you,
and remember most the lightning kiss
we risked
by hugging on the beach in rain
as Frankie Dash sang “You’ve Changed.”
Fall from a great height or not at all.
Your face in summer on a pillow,
a candle and its flicker signal
the feverish
fulfillment of a final wish.
Fall from a great height or never fall.
SHEILA-WHO-SEES
I asked her one day,
and she said why not.
The tarot showed something
we both had forgotten-
face up, face down,
over and around,
it was then, it was never,
it was already and it was pleasure.
Sheila-Who-Sees
told fortunes
on an ironing board,
swiftly turning cards
and sending clients home
wary of the beyond.
She could see into the distance
where streetlights
edged the window frame
and on that ledge
a music box cat
sang a song
with my name in it.
An evening star crashed
right through the plate glass
of the living room where
I loved Sheila
and Sheila loved the moon.
