he sprints just ahead of me

gleeful heart and head

shuffling through the early yellow poplar leaves

as fast as his preschool legs can take him

“Catch me papa,” he says.

pursued by no one

he runs for reasons I can’t name

I can only dream of running for no reason

but I tell myself I could catch him if I had to

maybe this fall I can

I can’t speak for future falls and pursuits

autumn here comes and goes

and is more often hot than not

maybe the poplars submit to drought

or to the ever-shortening days

or maybe they simply tire from holding on so long

one dozen years ago this October

I too grew tired

my feet like lead

my lips wrapped around a revolver

my brain aching like a rotten tooth

I can’t say with any certainty

that I’ll never be there again

not holding onto my leaves

not even wanting to

but this October

my feet are heavy

but not lead

my revolver is put away

my aches are dull and distant

and I dream of running for no reason

4 - Running For No Reason

5 - Riding in Atlanta

I could see the flashing blue lights ahead.

I figured it was just a fender bender since there was no ambulance in sight.

That traffic signal takes forever anyway.

She pulled right up next to me, a big, black, shiny SUV.

She was black too, if that matters.

I think it might.

I see color like everyone else.

She looked over at me, and then turned away.

I did the same.

She was about my age and might have been pretty.

I've never been good at that.

Almost everyone is pretty to me till I find out otherwise.

She looked sad, or troubled.

No one sees sorrow like I do.

Ask me why sometimes when you're not in a hurry.

She looked at me again and didn't turn away.

Courage comes in many forms I guess.

I smiled, as broad as I could without showing my teeth.

I've always been ashamed of my teeth.

I nodded at her and smiled again.

I mouthed, "it's ok" to her.

I would like to believe she understood.

I don't believe many things.

She produced, or retrieved, a small tissue and blotted her eyes.

I believe she was crying.

I really do.

When they way cleared and the light turned green, she turned left and I turned right.

That's not a political metaphor.

I don't give a hot damn about that shit anymore.

She turned left and I turned right.

It's that simple, or that complex.

I hope she's ok.

she said the sky looked like sand art

you know the thing

different colored sand

pastels maybe

pink and blue and orange

poured into a clear glass container

sifted and shaken and mixed

she was always saying stuff like that

the sky looked like sand art

the clouds looked angry

or sad

or happy

the autumn trees were blushing

stuff like that

she petted plants

as if they were shaggy dogs

speaking to them as if they were children

calling each by their Latin names

then she drowned

from the inside

that sickness with all the syllables

you know the thing

she had been drowning all her life

and then she was cold

there would be no more Christmas lights

no more birthday cakes

no more Easter dresses

no more cruel jokes

about awkward little girls

who said the sky looked like sand art

from now till eternity

I looked down in the coffin

she was beautiful

I put my finger to her lips

because these words

no longer belonged to us

6 - Sand Art

She was a freshman, smart, pretty, silent. She left the cafeteria and came back to my classroom to eat. She didn’t say a word. She didn’t even look at me. She sat down and sent me an email, apologizing, telling me that she was anxious and overwhelmed. I told her I was anxious and overwhelmed too and that we could be anxious and overwhelmed together. I worried about her, and talked to a counselor. She knew it was me. She had to. She was courteous, but cold, to me for the rest of the semester. I hope I did the right thing, or maybe I just did the safe thing. I don’t know. “I don’t know,” is my favorite sentence in the English language. The counselor talked to the parents. The parents got her help, whatever that means. She did much better, for a while. Her senior year they found her in her closet, her toes barely touching the carpet. I didn’t go to her funeral. I was anxious and overwhelmed that day.

He was an athlete, a generational athlete. The Greek God figurative simile is tired, and insufficient in his case. He was better than that. He seemed sad only once or twice in the three years I knew him, though sometimes his raucous laughter seemed insincere, but that’s not really evidence. Is it? I don’t know. Please tell me it’s not. Maybe I should have known. He dropped by my room every day, talked about sports, and girls. I don’t think he really liked sports. I’m sure he did at some point, but by the time he grew tired of them I don’t think he had a choice anymore. I inferred both of his secrets. I’ve only told you one. I’ll take the other to my grave. I’m sure I’ll be thinking about it on the day I go. After he graduated, he dropped by to wish me a Merry Christmas, or to tell me goodbye. I should have known. I should have fucking known. They shouldn’t have opened his casket. He had a pistol no one knew about. They shouldn’t have opened his casket, those morbid fucks.

He rode a funny little moped, or cycle of some sort. He had a funny little swoop to his hair and a funny little smirk to his smile. He was an actor. We knew he was acting on the stage. We didn’t know he was acting when he walked up or down the hall, smirking his funny little smile. Maybe we should have, all of us. I don’t know. The engineer said he lay down on the track, got up, looked at the train, as if he weren’t sure, and then lay down again as if he were. He was, or were, apparently. I don’t want to think about that, what those poor firefighters had to gather with their gloves and tongs. I don’t want to think about that. Maybe tomorrow I won’t.

She was smarter than us, no matter who we are or what Mr. Binet or Mr. Simon might have to say. I didn’t have any rules for her in my class or take any grades. I gave her a hundred after I talked to her once, an A plus plus plus. Sometimes you have to know what you’re doing is a farce, to recognize a farce and move on before you become a laughing stock to yourself. I threw her my copy of Nicomachean Ethics and told her to get the fuck out of my class, find a quiet place to read, and come back when she could explain Eudaimonia and the Golden Mean. She was back before I could explain the production possibilities curve to the mere mortals. She took Aristotle to the next level and then the next. I think we both wanted a god, a prime mover, that didn’t require supplication, but maybe a God who did is what we actually needed. I don’t know. She had a bunch of letters after her name and a shotgun everyone knew about. Her casket was closed. I guess even the most mortal monotheists aren’t that morbid.

There were others, of course, a beauty queen in a cold car, a poet on a cold couch, and a painter on a cold comforter. (Check out that irony.) I don’t know how many needles evince a good time or how many evince a suicide, but the difference isn’t enough to live on.

7 - Seven Suicides In No Particular Order

I let my dog lap the last few drops of coffee

in my “Greatest Husband” cup

I’m not sure coffee is good for a dog

or for a man for that matter

accounts vary

I’m also not sure I’m the greatest husband

or even the goodest one

or even a mediocre one

accounts vary there as well

coffee cups are not responsible for the lies

or exaggerations

disseminated on their behalf

I once threw my wedding band

into a campfire

a shameful account she’s never heard

and maybe nothing to write a poem about

I almost lied to you

and claimed that I don’t know why I did it

that shameful act

I feign ignorance a lot

but I can’t pull that here

not this time

I did it because it was

an almost-endless dismal winter

because I don’t know how to be a husband

or a father

or maybe even a man

because I had no models to emulate

and no maps to follow

because I believed

and maybe still believe

that happiness isn’t for me

or for us

all of us who are afraid of the dark

all of us who can't tolerate the itch of our collars

on the backs of our necks

all of us who smell funeral flowers

long after the graves are filled

and the other mourners are safe at home

the next morning I dug through the still-warm coals

with the old Case knife my daddy gave me

I found the ring

smoked

but safe

titanium melts at thirty-five hundred degrees

maybe my fire was somewhat less than that

or maybe my fire harbored a cooler spot

some sheltered recess to cloister

a mediocre husband’s foolishness

8 - Titanium

9 - Souffle

When I scribble stanzas

or mouth a story

about a white rose, or a bluebird, or the red clay,

I might well be speaking of death,

or sex,

or that thing she did

that I just can’t bear.

I reduce myself to the capital Eye

without trying

as myopic as a cleric

schooled in a creed outworn.

Every best word in its best order

is a conman’s pitch.

I brought you here

with promises of good food

and fellowship

the mac and cheese

the souffle

the soft bread

the open ear and heart,

only to drag you down to my level

and best you with sullen experience.

Are you experienced?

Are these scars familiar?

Will you ever leave?

Will you ever leave?

You see,

I just didn’t want to be alone

so I showed you a rose

and fed you souffle

just so you might listen.

Listen to me.

Listen to me.

Forgive me.

I’m so sorry.

I just didn’t want to be alone.

it was a toy pistol

it was always a toy pistol

on Christmas morning

or maybe a rifle too

we never wanted for

weapons of war

at our hose

bad guys abounded back then

I knew about bad guys

before I should have

I guess

before any boy should have

I guess

I always wanted to shoot

a bad guy or two

or maybe just one in particular

the one with the curly hair

and the evil eye

I don’t think I ever pointed my pistol

at an imaginary Indian

not that I was better

than the boys who did

but no Indian ever stole my horse

or scalped my mama

or choked her like he did

or kicked my little dog

because she was in the way

like I was in the way too sometimes

I guess

sometimes

if he wasn’t looking

I’d aim my Christmas pistol

at the back of his head

bang

I’d say to myself

so he wouldn’t hear

I always wanted to

shoot a bad guy

but never did

10 - Christmas Pistol

I am sorry for you

I can feel that for you

when empathy fails

and only distant pity remains

when our womb-less differences emerge

how much can we know of what

harsh men do in harsh shadows

when the curtains are drawn

when questioned marks are missing

when words are mere bootless sobs

when I don’t know for sure

when I simply don’t know

I saw her

she was you before I knew

before I knew you

before the dive bar curb

before I knew you

peering from the highest window

in the shaded house with the curtains drawn

all but the highest one

watching us play in the city’s street

and among her trampled-ditch-daylilies

burnt orange hemerocallis beauty

one day at a time

they said her husband drank too much

as if there was ever just enough

with machine guns in his head

his knuckles backhand across her face

they said that

I don’t know how one sees through

drawn curtains to know such a thing

I guess their patterns are familiar

to some who know

similar slapping sounds in the night

when children are asleep and the

slapping begins in earnest

I choked a loud soldier asleep

after the daylilies

once upon a time on a dive bar curb

for machine gun slaps on a pitiable face

mascara cheeks and a snotty nose

she reminded me of you

before I knew

before the bootless sobs

before the pity

and the questioned marks

and the harsh shadows

and the machine gun slaps in the night

11 - Machine Gun Slaps

12 - About the blood

I hit him hard

right above his eye

his brow

a gaping bloody pocket

I got sick in the bathroom later

about that

about the blood

about the eye itself

if it might fall out in the t-shirt

his sobbing girl held against

his streaming face

as I walked away

an opening act

discordant and ignored

in the background

he had it coming

like the rest of us

if Hollywood cowboys don't lie

a loud mouth in a greek shirt

two letters I can’t recall

alpha and omega maybe

and a backward hat

and backward mouth

talking backward shit

like backward boys do

spilling his beer

on my goddamn shoes

then the shit mouth

mumbling threats

he didn’t know I had rested

in the tub the night before

making myself bleed then too

getting sick about that too

about the blood

and so I hit him hard

right above his eye

his brow

a gaping bloody pocket

and so he fell to his knees

dizzy and scared

I stepped to hit him again

but he crossed his hands in front

of his face

supplicating

showing his palms

saying

please don’t

please don’t

I had said that too before

before before before

maybe that’s why I made myself

bleed in the tub the night before

before before before

maybe that’s why I hit him

like I did

right above his eye

his brow

a gaping bloody pocket

I got sick in the bathroom later

about that too

about the blood

You do not have to cry with me,

or hold my hand.

You do not have to know despair

as I have.

Your despair will suffice.

Your rain will suffice.

Your God will suffice.

You will suffice.

The soft bread will tear,

and the butter will melt,

and we will both be satisfied.

The neon lights in your city will hum in the night,

branding-Iron red and glacier blue.

I will watch the day fade past the barren poplars,

branding-iron red and glacier blue.

I will not feel alone.

I will not be alone.

If you are there,

anywhere,

I will not be alone.

13 - Anywhere

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