Chorus Read Free Page A

cost them college,
    those for whom
    â€œdamn homie
    in h i gh s chool you was the man homie
    the fuck happened to you?”
    was written .
    This is for those
    who o nly call once
    e ver 5- 7 months and
    have the same conversation
    each time ,
    like pop song s
    â€” the chords might change
    but the progression’s the same.
    It starts with
    a warm greeting
    and details suggesting
    progress paid a visit
    before the c over
    of enthusiasm fades,
    revealing
    the only real change:
    their location.
    Sad nostalgia infects
    their voice, reminding
    o f e ver y errand and chore
    and other reason to
    get off the phone
    right now .
    This is for those
    people, we all know
    those people.
    They were our best friends
    growing up, the ones we looked up to.
    Now we c an har d ly find
    the energy for half a smile
    whenever they cross our paths.
    This i s for those
    because after so many
    unsuccessful efforts,
    offering help feels
    like attempting to push
    the boulder of Sisyphus,
    it seems absurd to even try.
    All that remains is hope
    and hope can elect a president
    but it can’t save a person’s life
    so we write and read
    poems like these,
    like lighthouses and maybe
    those people will find their way
    back to shore.
    This is for those we haven’t lost
    because there is a fate worse than death
    and it’s living to hear eulogies
    for the person you could have been

16
    There was no way
    to say goodbye
    that last day I tried.
    There was thank you.
    There was I love you.
    There was a hand to hold
    and your eyes
    and the great shifting paintings
    of your windows.
    The ocean and the sky
    and you, so tired,
    everything deserting you.
    Years unwinding to this;
    From far away, I call,
    trying to keep your voice in my ears.
    Your warrior girl has pushed
    your bed to the window.
    Your head rests with the rising
    of the sun and of the moon.
    How many hearts broke
    themselves, trying to hold
    and keep, before she
    who could stop a coal truck
    with her will? She makes you soup.
    The waves break over her.
    I knew, this morning,
    before it came.
    You had gone under,
    deep beneath morphine
    and out with the tide .
    I am here, helplessly alive
    trying to find you.
    You, the long, brown, gypsy boy,
    trailing your ragged beauty.
    You, the man,
    wild-eyed and righteous,
    throwing your shoes at the murderer
    behind the pen. You, your shirt
    splotched with my tears. You
    laughing at my absurdity.
    Your shout of “What are you, drunk?”
    You the maker of hangover
    eggs, the eyes that shared the joke,
    fellow chaser of storms.
    the one who loved my swagger
    and knew everything behind it.
    The huge moving sea
    is between us .
    I no longer can hold
    your disappearing hand.
    Your body is as earth
    and stones and all
    there is to offer
    cannot bring one more day
    of your sweet, sleepy smile.
    I cry out from the sinew,
    out from the agonized clutch
    of my chest. My flesh
    has never seemed so undeserved.
    This grief is a hurricane
    that passes and passes.
    The eye. The storm. The eye.
    I remember you,
    that last afternoon
    in your high, white flat.
    You were unafraid. The sky
    was already taking possession .
    I remember you
    in that seaside room
    where the windows held no shore,
    only the vast horizon .

17
    Trace the red cord
    from tread to source
    to find threads
    of a crushed case,
    the screeching white
    rib of animal
    framework splintered
    through a pelt still
    fresh with fleas
    fragments of ivory
    archways snapped
    tangled in viscera
    of violets bruised
    rouge and mangled
    tubes pulsate spurts
    in the midmorning
    rays till the last drops
    sheen in every crevice
    of the road we glance
    away to avoid
    the scene
    a deflated carcass
    disappearing
    on the horizon.

18
    1
    Broken
    Pieces of bone
    Skulls
    And feet
    Eye s and teeth
    Mixed with shattered concrete
    All th is rubbl e
    Cousins
    Bricks
    Steel beams
    Sister
    Glass, mother
    Tears, blood
    Brother
    Babies
    Buried under all that unyielding
    Unforgiving rubble
    When the dump trucks
    Come