This Close
i.m. Robert James Hoffman 1950-1972
Little brother I have forgotten
our secret but I remember
your cupped hand
and steamy breath in my ear
I believe you are near
adjacent
my five hungry senses
as if you are with me
in the spaces between my fingers
between the letters of my name
between the numbers of my years
in sounds too high for ears
too low for even foot-soles
sometimes I can almost see you
shadow of a helpless fish
in the curl of a breaking wave
or hear you like halyards clinking
on wobbling masts in a foggy harbor
and recently the grieving animal I am
cooked up your likeness in a dream
you recognizably you but nothing
like the way I remember you
your round face intent upon surviving
I never wonder
who you might have become
never think of you as almost
rather as weightless counterweight
as abstract afterward
ungone a visitor from nowhere
you are where all the waters go
where I take myself to soothe myself to find a way
to understand your absence
how aging I grew into it
grew onto it like a trellis
Is it your death or mine or ours
or everyone’s I am moving through
the whole length of this life you left so early?
Gaza Aftermath
for Mosab Abu Toha
Shalt not yeah not kill but come on hella money.
Fires in the street drones in the air a love poem
speared and flapping on a crooked pike of rebar.
Death, listen, for your own good stop consorting
with murderers, it gives the wrong impression.
We owe you after all, and all of us are good for it.
Before the first door opened with old designs
the story of it all was right there in the book—
how fear becomes hatred—if you read it right.
I used to think we are here to help one another
believe all this is real and sometimes beautiful.
I only think that sometimes now. Which words
at least won’t make things worse? Which stars
are stars and which surveillance satellites?
Remember, there are two sides to every dollar.
An elegy claws its way up grief’s hoarse throat,
a dirge that could fracture your ribcage calling
to a world where such singing might make sense.
In the rubble a child’s remains are unearthed
right there, dead center in our future, and a photo
goes viral as in vain we mumble ancient poems.
The weight of dread is no lighter when shared.
Barbed wire rusts but razor wire just gleams.
You can change a map; a calendar is different.
