DEAR END OF THE LINE
(for Tomas Tranströmer)
3 AM. Moonlight,
stars. How’d we
run out of road
and gas? Countries,
currency? Spaces
where our differences
mattered? We followed
that high, long river
country to country,
currency to currency,
until it dipped under
ground and left us.
We had the sun
but it went too
and took the flame
and the long bluffs
we might have used
for cover. When’s
the last time
that plastic cooler
was something more
than a chair, a bag
of cheese, and two,
three cans of beer
floating in water
like insurance?
Why these words
now that doodling’s
as good a use
of paper, of lead
or ink as argument
or explanation
or petition,
heavenly or not?
3 AM. Moon.
Fuck it. I’m tired
of thinking, talking
about the somethings
or nothings that bracket
this world, the transit,
its terrible beauty,
deep or flat black
to light, off to on to off,
click to blinding white,
then calm or long pain.
I’m tired of endings
that have no meaning
beyond the stories
we make up. When’s
the last time you saw
a bird? I’m tired
of God. Yesterday,
an hour past dusk
we left our last village,
flipped the last switch.
From the rise, we saw
its mushroom of lights
blur out and we drove.
3 AM. Moon’s a scarred
palm. Here at the end
of the line’s a path
made by cows walking
tree line and fence
to grazing fields. We’d
go but where? Ain’t
nothing left but
distance. We’d make
love but the clocks
are broken. We’d die
before the land
gets us, but how?
Name a way. 3 AM.
A rash of stars. We
wait, hearts catfishing,
belly to throat,
trawling for stroke.
Remember that night,
the convertible
we drove from bar
to keg to liquor store,
the land full and loud,
until we found a swing
set under a lamp post
in the upper reaches
of a city park and fucked
in the grass or gravel
because the land
was good. 3 AM. Moon’s
a pisspot. Here’s one.
Your plane’s over water
that’s run bad.
You’ve lost your wings.
Poison’s wormed through
every exchange, spread
one part to the next.
You’re falling. Sick. What
to do with time? Joke. Moon
falls in a sky and no one’s.
Joke. Three warm cans
of beer and no gas. Joke.
Moon. Joke. Two people walk
into an empty bar. 3 AM.
–published in Tusculum Review, Vol. 11 (2015)