This Is A Long Drive For Someone With Nothing To Think About

I.

In that moment
of failure, you know
your cat will never walk
again. You might glance
your reflection in a window
and wonder, if only aloud,
how mysterious it is that
your shoes still fit.

And the next morning, the car
won't start - it never does.
You will remember that
at one point, the universe
didn't exist, you were
in your mother's womb
and nothing existed!

Every thought you
ever had about cleaning
vanishes! Your garden
is overgrown but
you don't care! And
your grandpa that died
last winter? What a saint!

II.

You chew your fingernails
clean off in a fit of ecstasy.
Your fingers are sausages.
Eat them right down
to the knuckles. Now cut
open your stomach. Watch
your fingers squirm like maggots
in the light. Crawl in there
and go to sleep. You are
the size of a thumb now,
something you have always
wanted. Tomorrow, there
will be hot breakfast, but for now,
there is nothing.

*Title from Modest Mouse

Death At the Library

I watched a man die as I was sitting
at a computer at the public
library. The paramedics
never rose their voices,
the librarians never uttered
a shush, and I never finished
writing that paper.
I have never felt so alone.
It was the white sheet draped over
the body, it was the endless distance
between the body and the ceiling, it was
the homeless man
who was still asleep in the corner,
a book propped up between his thumb and
forefinger, head tilted to the side, half
drooling on his coat. I watched
a man die, something paramedics
understand well, about as well as they
understand the need
for silence, about as well
as God's understanding of the universe,
this silent expanse of stars
that die without warning, a blink, a flash,
a darkness that leaves Him staring in disbelief,
His fingers trembling,
not quite a saint Himself, unable
to think of the word for
humanity, which is not unlike the way
I felt as I watched a man die a second time.
This is years later. My buddy from the army is home
for two weeks. It is the summer before
my eighteenth birthday and he is teaching
me how to smoke cigars. He
pulls out his laptop and starts playing a video.
This is a helicopter covering my platoon he says.
The video is grainy. Crosshairs dance
across the screen before settling on a man.
That's the enemy he says. The screen
shakes and two seconds later, the man is replaced
by a cloud of dust, the red glow
already fading from his body,
gooseflesh climbing
up and down my body, and me, absolutely stricken
with a loss of appetite, of breath,
of the daylight on that sunday afternoon and
the green, green grass.

I Thought I Saw You Outside Fourth Coast

Which reminds me,
I want to run down the hall

completely naked, my face painted
like a tiger or a mime
who just threw up all over himself,
pieces of that morning's
newspaper sagging out of the corner

of my eye like a tear, which
is not to say that I have been crying,

although sometimes I do pretend
that I have been weeping,
usually in a corner or a crowded
subway car, nostrils flaring
like the sun, knuckles white from

prayer done right,
eyes closed and head bowed

into some stranger's lap, who
just happens to be
talking loudly on her cellphone to you,
you who have been
dead for months, but sometimes

I forget just how many
people I have actually met, how

many times I have successfully choked on
cheap whiskey, how
many hours I have spent sleeping
in strange houses,
but one thing that I will never forget

is my brother's birthday
last year, the day you were found

hanging from a tree branch, a rope
wound around your neck,
raindrops sliding softly down your face,
leaving only a note
on the seat of your car that read

I love you all

In a Tunnel Underneath West Michigan Avenue

I swear God spoke, his voice
sputtering down from a manhole
cover, disguised as a car missing

a muffler. I could feel
the weight of the concrete
and cars bearing down on the tips

of my hair. And when I
reached to end of the tunnel,
the wall beside me opened

like a wound and I crawled
in, unaware of muddy waters
that ate at my ankles and

the quiet recitation of prayers
above. And in my final moments,
I simply clung to myself and began
singing It Is Well With My Soul.

The Burning Bush

Everyone, everywhere,
has fallen asleep
in the bushes.

Far away, a torch
is dropped. Not one person
wakes to help. Who can blame
them? Dark is falling out
over the ridge. Soon,
the dead will bury themselves.
And then who will be left
to mourn the burning bush?

The Last Day of Summer

Your hand is heavy
in mine. Shall I cut
it off and prop
the door open?

I don't believe the leaves
have ever fallen so quickly.

The wind has a way
of sweeping leaves inside.

Damn the debris of autumn,
you mutter, quiet-like,
just above a whisper.

Later, in the kitchen,
an apple crisp is being born,
and in the cupboard,
a plate has cracked in half.

The Petoskey stones
that we gathered
stare at me from the window sill.

In the closet, our tent
has already started to hibernate.

By this time tomorrow,
I will have forgotten your name.

For now, you smile and brush
the hair out of your eyes,
quiet-like, just above a whisper.

In Matt's Wake

I.
We wore feathered hats and
sleek animal hides, our eyes
gazing skyward while we
slaughtered

The sacrificial lamb on a bed
of toothless smiles and baby
blue eyes, pretending not to
notice

How the blood stained like
satin upon our fingertips.

II.
Mother cried in the corner,
Father wept from the rafters,
and we shot holes in the concrete
supports with Red Rider's, the
BB's embedding themselves like

(the crayons that lack sheaths, waxy
scribbles on sheets of construction
paper, tiny legs and arms of paper
dolls that we ripped and shredded
into colorful confetti
and threw like rice at a wedding
or a kindergarten valentine's party)

mothers tucking their only child in at night,
reading Dr. Seuss to soothe the
monsters in the closet, under the bed,
in the back alleys of our minds and tongues
and black cavity teeth.

III.
I heard talk about Job cursing God,
though it was only a rumor.

I mean, how could a straight shooter
like Job, a wealthy, faithful, God-fearing son
of a gun, turn on his heels with
his middle finger raised in
reverence and yell

Fuck off!

And, how could he then proceed
to the single tree left in his pastures,
where his sheep and cattle and all
his little boys and girls once gathered,
sling one end of his hempen rope over a branch
bent to heaven, and cleanly knot a noose
on the other?

(I would imagine that he stood
on a branch not eight feet
from the ground. Did he
jump, his neck snapping
like a firecracker,
or did the tree rear up as if piloted
by God himself, and strike him
dead upon the earth?)

Tell me, does it seem plausible that
he would slip his head into that noose
and tug it tight?


Jesus wept and
Job hung.

IV.
We sat on top of
The Last Supper,
overlooking the cemetery that was
bathed in pale moonlight, passing
a bowl between us as we partook in
silent communion.

Clouds struggled to take form
under the moons sad smile,
molding themselves into a question
that I could not be bothered with.

I wondered what it felt like to
trespass amongst the gaping craters,
bounding across the surface without
gravity's grip.

I closed my eyes and thought about
(the tree where Matt smoked his last
three cigarettes in succession, the
broken branch where he stood until
it could hold his weight no longer, how
the sky watched helplessly and mourned
late into the morning) how slowly the earth
spins.