mmmmcdlxii

Broken Lyric.

Watching a clip from YouTube
at 5:07am Sunday I think
this is it, I’m having a heart
attack. The thing is, I’ve had

several. They’ve always been
gas before, but that doesn’t
always rein in the panic. At
Fabulosa yesterday evening

I purchased two books of
poetry. One by an old friend.
The other by someone an old
friend recommended. Long

ago. Laundry, over which a
roach crawls, soaks in my sink.

mmmmcdlxi

Life.

I’ve been alive for a lot
of stuff. And then there
are the other things that 

I haven’t been alive for.

mmmmcdlx

The Sun Aims for Sunny

Like a dandy. But the fog lingers.
I finger my invisible drink, imagining
I’m testing the temperature of a pool
before diving in, or perhaps it is a bit

more like slowly dipping a toe into fresh
bathwater. I’m aiming more for funny
than raucous (I think?) as I lift a wet
finger and clear my throat. “Waiter,

there’s a fly over here that’s come un
done.” The poor guy, somebody’s son,
does quite well at his attempt to roll with
the punches without coming across the

least bit flirtatious. “Too bad, so sad!” I
think, pouring out my imaginary drink.

mmmmcdlix

A couple walks by, 3pm. I
follow them a moment with
my eyes and, unable to resist
as they play at bickering, with

my neck, so, okay, I’m staring,
rolling my eyes a bit as they
disappear over the hill. I’m
thinking couples, hmph! It is

a feeble attempt at being a
little bitter and it doesn’t last
long, comes across to me as
fake. Later, though, in bed by

around 8:30, not sleeping yet,
of course, my mind does its
thing. Surely it’s my neck that
is the culprit, the rememberer,

craning as it did earlier in the
afternoon, but I’m filled for a
few—I could say tortured, but
I’d be kidding—minutes or so

with a discerning nostalgia,
greedy memories, mostly of
the succulent tactility of spoon
ing, how tangible, as the sec

ond hand ticks (the memory
mixed with the sounds of some
one’s wristwatch, but whose?).
How each tick from the timepiece

moves the titillating connect
ivity of the surfaces of skin
that have found themselves
smushed onto the surfaces

of someone else’s heats
inevitably into an uncom
fortable sweat until that
couple, one of them you,

sleeps, perhaps soundly,
snoring at the edges of the
bed, that oblong stretch of
space, a vacuum, between.

mmmmcdlviii

Domesticated & Roasted

I couldn’t laugh then. For
months afterwards, anyone
who believed they had known
me in the slightest would catch

my eye for long enough to con
vey disbelief and disdain before
moving on to wherever they
thought they were going. I’m

no Cassandra, but who nom
inated me to be the one person
in the room who could see the
future. Little did I know that

they had all one-upped me,
each having dispensed with
their sobriety weeks or even
months earlier, they had all

peered into the same future
that only now I could glimpse.

mmmmcdlvii

The End of an Era

Back then, wanting to live long enough
was so easy-peasy; so rosy-dozie. But
when it was proclaimed resolutely on
today’s teevee that it was the end of
an era, and this was furthermore done
in a giddy fashion seemed to have the
studio audience just as giddy in return,
I sure didn’t believe it. I had known an
era or two. And they had ended. And
I’d been in denial afterwards for years.
When the scientists who measured
such things committed suicide, we
had absolutely no way of knowing
what an era even was. Or is. We
just knew from our own experiences
that it was not a pretty thing, this
era ending. So, despite all of the
proclamations, those confident
announcements, I didn’t believe
a word of it. “This era will end
with the apocalypse,” I told my
pal Farrah, who, despite her name
was very 21st Century. “Lighten up,
Dude!” she said. It seemed like her
favorite thing to say to me. And it
was obvious that she was annoyed.
She was already on that end of an
era bandwagon. I felt a sudden
twinge of nostalgia and, truth be
told, a rather extreme desire, more
than just a resigned readiness, to
welcome that apocalypse with the
widest grin I could muster, which
would be a small representation of
my likewise overly outstretched
arms, held in such a way that
revealed how craven they were
for the tightest embrace they’d
ever known. “That’s just way
too much,” thought a willing
yet sorely disappointed Farrah.

mmmmcdlvi

Ponderings & Educated Guesses
(yet another interlude)

Back then I wanted to live long enough
to tell the stories of what I had no way
to put into words, because it was also
impossible to float somewhere outside

of myself in order to see what people
like to call the “big picture” of what
is going on, of how sick I’d become.
How emotionally—how mentally—ill.

It was a pre-pandemic deterioration
the worst of which I can now say
occurred before I was literally kicked
out on my ass. Kicked to the curb then

wait what turns out to be this extraordinarily
long duration and then kicked out into the 

elements.  The worst had already happened 

by the time I got to the second part, being

literally removed from my home, and the 

trauma (I would like it to be understood

that I do not take that word lightly) that 

would accompany it, until I realized (even 

considerably after this less harrowing set of 

events began to occur) my memory, that 

dried up orange wedge that had always already 

made retrospection something so unlike, that 

seemed so seductively distinct, that I had taken 

to saying I write to remember...and...that’s why I 

take photographs, too, had begun to malfunction, 

just as it does for those whose memories are normal. 

And I had already been weaving these facsimiles

together for a decade, into what has evolved into

this particular project, which, since that time which 

I call the worst of it, years before the pandemic, 

dozens of months before losing my home of 

nearly thirteen years, I’ve spent yet another

near decade building this quilt made of me, 

all slapdash, wherein I can dive into at what

ever point, if for no other reason than the 

fundamental one of understanding illness 

as I never had, of the incredibly long process 

of healing, and the physical deterioration of 

simply living that can go on in simultaneity. 

One comes of age. One experiences tragedy, 

one gets sick and (at least in this case) even

tually heals, slowly, is always healing. And at 

the same time, one     —usually completely un

aware of the pace, much less that ALL OF THIS 

is ever happening, it is all so significant, it is always,

yet, indefinitely, meaning, also, infinitely for you,

me, the one who is involved, the victim(?), albeit 

finitely, in the whole grand scheme of things,

perhaps, or, in theory, because one can 

never truly know—     is dying.

mmmmcdlv

The Politics of Memory

     Woe to those homeless who are out on this night.
                                            —John Wieners

When did acts of youth
become so geriatric? In
the beginning. The tricks
the decades play. If only

we could have them all back
but for a singular solitary day.

mmmmcdliv

Oil of Dew

     Are there going to be summer suckers?
                                   —John Ashbery

It’s been ten years
and the sun ain’t.

You know how when
you get sand in your

shoes? Didn’t pack
right. Need shop

ping but can’t in
this blistering sun,

the waves going
lap, the waves

going lap. but I
told you so. X

that out, maybe
it was you that

told me. This
sweltering. The

waves that don’t
go lap lap. The

toes (the sand
between them)

that don’t go
tap tap. This

rolling over.
This beach.

This beach
ain’t nude

and the sun
is rude to you.

So you roll.
You try to

just roll
with it.

roll over
until you

are up
and your

eyes to the
sun at two

in the after
noon. Too

many years
of the same

heat pressing,
the castles of

sand melting
and you burn,

unable as you
are to bronze.

Skin sense
tive to the

lap to the
lap until

you are
dry, dried

up, all
tapped.

If only
you’d an

ounce
more

sap. To
roll like

the body
within, that

burnt-out
lust, your

skin a crisp
and gritty

crust. But
your eyes

from the
hole in the

beach as
you lift

with your
all. Alone

as you are.
Just you

here. No
thing but

old dust.
The castles.

Not even
a moat,

its re
tract

able
bridge.

Every
thing’s

gone
but

the
dried-up

desert hyp
notic land

scaped the
wind-razed

castles of
dust the

dust.

mmmmcdliii

The Lava Story

It’s Friday, ya know?
I wake up real slow.
Look around, no mouse.
Look some more, no
spouse. If I were there
and he were here, what
would I call the ocean,
dear? Since this is just
asking myself, I answer.
It’s not lava, I suspect.
And me being me,
having just woken up,
do as I do no matter
who’d be here (with
the only invariable:
that I’d have to be)—
and that’s the same
damned thing I’ve
surely done some
three or four times
since slipping away
from yesterday for a
few scattered, conked-
out, snore-laden fever-
like dreams—which is,
I excuse myself and
I hobble slowly over
to the lavatory for
that momentary
relief. Then I
shake it off.
But before
heading all
the way back
I pause for a
moment at
the sink,
look my
self into the
mirror and
mutter aloud:
Welcome back.
Happy Friday.
And then back
to the bed I go.

mmmmcdlii

When I’m Close to You

What did I miss? Holding your
hand as we walk down the avenue.
Your fingers, cold as heavy metal,
sort of melt within the grasp of mine,

like they’re slathered with butter. We
don’t even notice as the streetlamps
start to pop at dusk, dark settling
over the fog. Do you think we’ll

make it to the dunes by midnight?
We get there, it must be ten o’clock,
the water like ice, the bonfire built
but unlit. Where has everyone gone

off to? Nothing phases you. “I have a
lighter in my pocket.” With his oil-cooled
fingers, he leads my hand right to it.

mmmmcdli

A Smug, Hard-Working Sonnet

     Hard work is my professional brand.
               —paraphrasing Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson

I have considerable experience with
post hole diggers; fence building.
Also with putting nubbins of cheese
into mousetraps. I get distracted

quite easily. A mouse and a roach
walk into a tiny coffin-sized hotbox
of a bar and refuse to order drinks,
terrorize the employees and clientele. 

When business is at its calmest you 

might see me running around like a 

chicken with my head cut off. I’ve never 

axed a head off of anything, nor wrung 

a single neck. It’s that protestant work
ethic; the Adderall of my generation.

mmmmcdl

When I’m Far from You

Feel this. You know how
people say he’s right here
in my heart? It’s bogus.
There’s so much distance.

Traditionally the bride and
the groom do not see each
other on their wedding day.
All the loved ones take a

seat. You know how when
you go bowling the next day
your fingers all feel so bruised
from having them in each of

those holes, carrying that
heaviness? I don’t believe
in distance. I also don’t
think there’s such a thing

as astral projection. Never
underestimate the power
of touch, of course, but
when I say I feel you here

even though you are clearly
there...aren’t you? If there’s
a ghost of love then you tell
it that I’m not haunted. I am.

mmmmcdxlix

Stan’s Overused Volume of Amy Vanderbilt’s

     May I remind you that every sentence, everywhere,
     ends with a period?
                                                   —John Ashbery

“These are the rules. It’s
in the book, see? Have
you memorized every
page of it? Very good,

very good.” He pet his
pal like a dog for a mo
ment, then did a one
eighty, which happened

to have him point in the
exact direction of the
kitchen wastebasket.
Do you say wastebasket

or trashcan? What then
do you say? With book
in hand he marched
forward like a sweaty

band camp adolescent.
Until of course he reached
the aforementioned recept
acle. Into it the book went,

and rather viciously. Stan
watched his sweaty, red-
faced man as his hand came
up empty from the trashcan.

In awe of this Freudian scene,
Stan stood there for a while
filled with a frenzy of contra
dictory emotions like pride,

envy and an ever-expanding,
ball-burning love.

mmmmcdxlviii

They Say It Is Whatever You Make of It

What I am doing is easy to relay.
Who I am is not.

I’m sitting atop my bed, leaning
back against the back wall of my
tiny coffin-sized apartment. Only

it’s not a hot-box today. It’s cool,
lovely, and with my door open just

a bit, I feel the breeze against my
back. It whooshes over and under
the back flap of my left ear and surely

wends its way out the door, across the
hall and into my neighbor’s tiny room.

He’s playing a video game. It’s always
loud. I think he’s moved on from the
one in which he is racing cross-country

in a semi. No rumbling. No rough talk.
Instead I hear occasional instructions

(vague, indecipherable, but nevertheless
loud) of a spritely girl voice. She sounds
like Sakura from Naruto. Anyway, what

I’m doing. Is reading a book a purchased
(I do this when I can, which for a while
was a mournfully rare occurrence) on eBay.

It is by a friend. It’s the second time I
purchased it. (It wasn’t one I already

owned, one of the many lost when I
was 50, that old story, but) I bought a
copy from Amazon, one of those rare

occurrences because I was able to do so.
Apparently, shortly after it arrived, it was

either misplaced or stolen, something
that happens often down at the front
desk, where the mail comes in and

waits for me. Anyway, it is a book
from a friend, the second purchase of

said book. It is inscribed to someone
that isn’t me, this book written by a
friend, purchased twice. And I am

leaning back against the cool back
wall of my apartment reading it.

And it is good. Page after page of it,
I read, thinking of my friend, reveling
in its humor, the poignance of each piece.