child (you have you)

child (you have you)

“I wish everybody knew/What's so great about you”

“This Is the Last Time,” The National

you don’t owe anyone

anything, child

until you pay you

pay yourself well, often, & true

everyone else can wait

they all have other things to do

you have you

child

you have you

---

[and then the Southern version]

child (you have you)

you don’t owe nobody

nothing, child

until you pay you

pay yourself well, often, & true

everyone else can wait

they all have other things to do

you have you

child

you have you

---

hindsight

hindsight

hindsight is not 20/20

although it makes a pithy saying

hindsight is not a microscope

although it focuses the mind’s eye

hindsight is a type of telescope

we use to pull back the past over our shoulder

hindsight is the narrow delusion of memory

that reconstructs as best as we are capable

if only i had known what i know now

or i would do everything differently this time

but we wouldn’t and we won’t and we can’t

because hindsight is not 20/20

and foresight is a fool’s paradise

and sight is elusive and fleeting

all shadows and cardboard like a photograph

or a novel or the film everyone watches instead

the absence of her

the absence of her

"This is the Book, these are the Pages, here is the Writing."

MaddAddam, Margaret Atwood

mostly it is true

that men wear their affections

their passions and longings

their carnal cravings

on their skin and in their hands

as well as their lips and tongues

because it is palpable and corporeal

like washing up on shore from a sunken ship

but just as he had learned (he thought)

to live (if it could be called “living”)

with the absence of her (like an anchor)

he found himself in tears on the couch

in the final chapters of the book

he had wanted to read with her

just to be able to talk about with her

he was reduced to sobbing uncontrollably

yes it was the book of course

but it was the book you see
in the absence of her that twisted

him inside out and left him that alone

wiping tears away from his contacts

and off the lenses of his reading glasses

his chest heaving and aching

and his skin a moon-lit desert (an empty hand)

distance

distance

“Everywhere I am is just another thing without you in it.”

“Fashion Coat,” Sad Songs for Dirty Lovers, The National

we are separated by 2 years and 300 miles

when you wake up there alone in your bed

you feel something on the back of your knee

and start to reach down or pull back the covers

but you don’t realizing what the sensation is

two lips on the back of the knee like a poem

and then you say to me without speaking aloud

that you have been talking with cats in your dreams

Nakata i whisper separated by 2 years and 300 miles

the taste of the back of your knee lingering on my lips

god

god

"He sounds both anxious and supercharged, the way kids used to sound if it was a parade or a fireworks display—something brief and miraculous." Madd Addam, Margaret Atwood

when i look at any child

it is easy to believe in god

when i look at most adults

it is impossible to believe in god

and then there is you

god, yes, there is you

warning: writers (if)

warning: writers (if)

if you find your life

entangled with a writer

heed this warning

if you find yourself

a writer’s lover or spouse

if you find yourself

(god forbid) a writer’s child

if you need food shelter or clothing

or (god forbid) an affectionate hand

if you need even a trace of selfless intimacy

this, i mean, this is all you will get

words

stark and solitary across a page

and they will be as satisfying as

tearing a page from a novel

to slip into your dry mouth