How can I reach you when the fact
of me is no consolation. The shock of blonde
beyond‚ far from reach‚ less far than we think
or like to think but too far for me to muss
the down beneath your fedora‚ too far to tell you again
I need your eyes‚ too far to wipe the condensation from
your mother’s eyes or mine‚ & too far to find
a better word for it than I could.
The vision interrupts. I know dead people
& you are not dead. Still we burn the tattooed
flags of rice paper‚ still we outstretch through the pain
to another with the memory of your fantastical
riffs on the prolixity of a lexicon too limited to
contain you‚ a ropes course you pinnacled
as the rest of us struggled to stand‚ knowing
it was our purpose to be useful in our own
wandering ways but needing you to build
the sets webbed with picture frames‚ asking
could you show me what to wear today or
imagine with me the backdrop to the grandiosity of what
we could become & help me find the objects
that will convey what the actor the character
which is to say the identity in confluence with yours
what will we say Jon & please uncover please jaw with me
for the last hours we can afford to squander
deconstruct what my character & yours wants
& document it archive the evidence of ourselves
we are of vital urgent need & only you know it
please help me preserve the stay-gold coterie
immemorial & please if you could irradiate us too
please lend me your light again if only for an hour
Brother don’t you know that when I saw the water
bereaving the stone behind the glass
I bolted from my seat & haggled its molecules
knowing they were those of the matter that made you
beseeching their alchemy don’t you know
I can’t watch her like this it hurts too much
& don’t you know I felt him coming in
the autumn the brigand at the door the thrush
of the loaming the branches dark with birds
Death licked at the arch of my door left the
stain of his endless elision Death swore
to inherit my sword & peacock-fan & not the last
audacious Death came beneath the jacaranda
& augured our crowd of sorrows Death
drew close to my face with breath miasmatic
whispering burn self shine light
