1. Introduction
He, sunning conversationalist
of eyes materialized after
recognition of our both having
read book, in fact, of my still reading it.
And the metaphor of that novel was
that unacceptance of what one has
is eventually just self destructive as
his—and he mine too—object of lust
but despite lovelessness. And then he
and Marjorie, someone who loved him,
maybe as much as me, found what's lost
or force-found in each other.
And so then preceded with dumb
awkward fucking, though never to me.
How the raucousness of them concussed
violently. And he drank a lot, and then she
became lesbian, more introverted,
hated the cock, became less sure
of herself. Hated herself more maybe.
And I thought, 'why constantly me?'
'Why his vociferous redoubling of dedication?'
as if both in self hatred found a bond
in the fixing the other's loverlorn, or else
in the complimentary abscesses.
And seemingly I, tossed back and forth
raucously when one love breaks and
then another love breaks, and then another.
And I spake. Big stupid idiot that I am.
And I fanned the flames from the inside.
And they became a conflagration out
of any reasonable perspective and grew still.
And I died in their tongues and attended them.
2. Life in Florida
Today I went to the beach
with my mother and step-family.
He stayed at his own house,
played a little violin in the kitchen
or in the yard of far subdivision.
Mother's fat husband tried feeding
hotdog to dolphins who came in
too close to shore expecting he
was something more (they're far
too trusting), and tried nothing else.
I became sunburnt. The sun hides
the burn in that light, and wants more.
She being somewhere else and
she too being somewhere else.
And he played the little violin.
And I fiddled with the sand
with my feet and read a dollar
and a half paperback book
from shop run by old man
that expected me to steal from him.
And I didn't, but stole instead
from big box bookstore; from friends.
Today I went to big box bookstore
with friends. And we had coffee &
read fashion magazines on the porch
there and (oh! how politically forward
and exceptionally normal) smoked
cigarettes. At first it was just me
and then some other people came
and went, and then some others.
I brought my sunglasses but left
them on the wirey metal table, just
sipped coffee drink. And then Marjorie
and Bailey came, and then Rick and Seth.
Compact little fag who went to RISD
or Pratt (appropos) or Sarah Lawrence.
"Yes," Seth said, "I just finished theory book."
"How did you find it?" I already bemused
and he laughed, and Rick, daft, already
probably having heard this next bit went
inside to get himself coffee drink, "Well,
good." I laughed, almost spitting coffee.
And came back
3. W (the women)
I do not hate women, just
some women. I do not hate
Marjorie or Bailey, though
they both risk too readily what
is not incautiously given them.
Bailey had tattoos, she had firstly
and primarily stricken him. She
dated someone else and then
someone else and then dabbled
with other women. She was
the type to play mumbelty peg,
if you take my meaning. She
loved me, and I loved her too
in my way. (How much love can
one give? We will return to this)
Marjorie came nearly out
of nowhere to my wavering gaze
—it being wholly distracted—
as duplicated Bailey; or at least
that is what Bailey felt, and said.
Beautiful in her own right, if compact;
maybe even smarter than the rest of us,
if that helps. She was the socially
conscious one, who neither drank
nor smoked anything ever, but slept often.
And I,
fair and unassuming,
ingratiating in a platitudinal way
and then snide.
If disaffected, out of fear.
4. Rollover Accident
Rick picked me up one afternoon.
It was during the wet season
and had been raining expectedly
for a few hours and everything wet.
He saying something about
mutually interested in science
fiction cartoon sitcom. We laugh,
we silent for a time. "It takes the edge
off of the heat." This from me.
"And then the sun sets." "And then
the sun sets," I agreed. And then
driving through something to Bailey's
because I interested she and he
infatuated; for something. And then
through the sub-division in-between,
houses on all sides, piles of sand,
abandoned yellow machinery for the day.
And the engine slowed; some song
of all temperaments swelling. I remembered
then, Isaac and John, still alive then
though soon to die, and tentative swells
and all looming things of the past
on all horizons.
"I love this song," hand on lap. "I...
is this band name?" Silent nodding
caress. Rough sound of my not
having shaved for a few days &
his hand's ignorance. "Rick," I sd.
Leaning in for the new neck; picked up.
Awkward stick shift between readjust.
Snog. Saliva. And furious fisting. And I
thought of nothing and nothing thought
of me back and I "Rick," and I "Rick," & I
reciprocate. The song changed and changed
rain started again and then stopped. And I
came to, and Rick came too. And we silently
reclothed beside one another.
Car restarted, Rick drove too quickly through
puddle, and then through another puddle
and then the car rolled over.
5. Bad Decision
I got a phone call from crying
Bailey, she recently split up
with some girlfriend and I the
implacable listener, because
when serious, I know how to
keep the bitching inside of my head
and sit quietly. And so drive over
to Bailey's, through fetid subdivision,
past car-crash site, past gate-
keeper I afraid of and inside.
She, vegan chinese food untouched,
sex-musical on the television,
unwatched. Her cheeks two stupid
azure streams over flying swallows
below her clavicles and into black
tank-top.
"She was a bitch," I said flatly "She
was a grifter, really." And had been
living off of found pastries from a
vegan bakery dumpster, and leaving
the pink boxes and string strewn about.
Snuffles. Heavy breathing. "I called Rick."
I don't know what to do with this.
Bailey can seem stupid but knows
what she is—what I am, even.
"Why?" Snuffle and stop, as a plug
pulled from a full basin of water. She
knows the love that he reserves for her.
"Because he cares." "And because
I don't care?" "Because he listens
without speaking." "Because he believes..."
She. "however stupidly, he believes."
Or maybe she prefers the cock now.
Or maybe she alights now the last snowy
peak of reality into a flight a fancy
that has no repercussions but universal love for her.
"I am not doing this shit any longer."
"Well he's coming over. And you
fuck shit up too." "I am not mean."
"I'm not mean, and will make it clear."
And I can whisk right out the door.
6. Discovery
Oh bitterness before which I
considered the selfless tack,
when a squattish friend
of Marjorie; is "pretty sure that
Rick and Seth are sleeping,"
and I imagined them both
in a fataler crash, "together."
And she's almost positive that
"Marjorie has been suspecting
something for some time now."
I became a soluble salt lick
in the rain and kept a straight face,
and maintained for them shock,
which was easy to conjure and
good humor which was much harder.
And the pool of me was and
smelt salty all day long.
7. the Party
Marjorie is upset because of Rick,
and I'm not speaking with Bailey,
or with Bailey's with new boyfriend.
And we're all drinking in somebody's
godforsaken backyard and it's steamy
even though it's relatively late at night.
Rick shows up with Seth,
everyone leaves unhappy.
8. the Proposal
Eventually Rick came to me contritely
and seemed to be expressing a pleny
of remorse for something. "I'm sorry,"
he said, even. And my love for him knew
no pity, but formed the visage. And out
of all proportional reason, I smiled, so
loving the self-immolation that I did.
"I can make it up to you tonight," and I
didn't really believe him, but he night.
And I did. And he said, "I can promise
that you'll have a wonderful evening."
9. Wonderful Evening
Seth's favorite film is the new version
of stupid romantic trash, so you'll know
his love for the real gaudy. I have no
ungodly idea what he was wearing
in the front seat of Rick's new car.
And I got in the back, then contritely.
And we went to a diner and I sat opposite
them and ate chicken, not then being
vegetarian, and went home again.
10. Dead Lovers
Then, rapid-fire, two of my ex-lovers expired.
It was a Monday, I remember when it was.
Isaac, who had been in an all-oceans sprint
in a small skiff, or so I'd heard, had been boarded
in the Sea of Japan by pirates and shot dead.
They found his little Jewish corpse riddled
with bullet holes, skiff not worth stealing but
stuff was. We had drifted apart since those
shorter days between sheets in the basement
of his parent's house. I didn't know what to think.
And then word came that John had died.
When my test came back HIV-, I
learned that he'd never been to begin with.
I imagined his curly mop standing up to the wind
on the shoulder of some road back in Michigan
and imagined his new boyfriend fiddling
with the tire iron, and the drunk driver—in
the afternoon! a drunk driver! Perhaps I
conflated a lust for attention with vileness. He
then heroic, and we both in car accidents.
11. a Few Days Off
I rationalized a few days off
and spent them crying in the dark.
People kept calling and so I called work. I said,
"I have had two deaths occur," and hung up.
Someone pelted my window with pebbles.
I imagined a slight Rick, but did not go to the sill.
I smoked a lot of cigarettes and mourned my own death.
And one day I got so drunk I threw up twice, once
in the morning, and then once again late at night.
And my mother sent me a postcard from home that said:
"I Love You."
12. Feeling Much Better
As all things, blank grief begrudgingly
segues to the banality of blank life. The
outside of my house was not swayed
by my petulance, or changed even by
weather (it had been relatively placid).
At one point I had resorted to call Bailey
who didn't answer her phone but replied
with a text saying "I don't hate you," & I
was alarmed that she'd think that I thought that.
And I sighed, this blank life.
13. Call and Response
Then one night quite unexpectantly Rick
knocked on my door and I opened it.
Fey little Seth flanked him on the right.
I shouted "I am in love with you; what
don't you understand?!" And Seth
broke into laughter. Rick fixed him
with a steely glance and with a deference
I couldn't have seen in the fag, Seth left.
"Thank you," from Rick. And I broke
into sobs right there on the porch. And
then I said goodnight and went back
inside, closed the door; closed all doors.
14. Reunion
I happened upon Bailey one day
at the bookstore. She holding
the play sheaves of some genital
soliloquy, and she seemed better
for not having Rick, or projected it.
And we bought holiday-flavored
coffee drinks and sat on the porch.
And nothing was even slightly similar.
And then, as if from a movie Marjorie
arrived on her moped. Then we all
for the love of Rick, or for the love of
something else, cried.
15. Lunch
And then I met Rick for lunch at the park.
At first we pranced playfully about
one another, as though I hadn't confessed
my true love for him. I excruciated.
We sat down and it was getting
colder. He said, "I'm not fucking Seth,"
and the wet from the ground seemed
to move me to motion, but I sat.
"but I think I'm in love with him," Rick
finished. I cried. I seemed always to
be crying then. Rick draped his left
arm around me and he whispered
"I want things to be different too."
And I found some small breath:
"Like, for example, if I moved here
three years ago instead of he,
then we would have fallen in love,
and I would have learned to play
the violin alongside you, and we
would be happy!" He said nothing
his bright eyes having grown dimmer
with each word of the recital, and
spun on a heel leaving a brutalist
symbol in dust by my feet. I considered
lunch, resigned myself to buying lunch,
found nothing appetizing, and then
had coffee.
16. Epilogue
He, now, receding, but still extant
in the quieter moments when love
breaks and the artifacts remain.
Bailey had a very good friend with
whom she proposed a solidarity
tattoo. Marjorie sent me an ink
letter, many years later saying that
she couldn't even remember what
began all of the shit between us;
wondered how I was doing in life,
if we might become friends again,
if I would ever return to Florida.
