scarf it up

A parade of scarves. Each on a sapling branch. Winter. Franklin Square. Solar and Plum. Fuzzy scarf. Skinny stringly one. Double-crocheted maroon orange olivered yellow lavender scarf. That one. Reserved. Proffered. Homeless. Plastic bag fastened with a safety pin. Inside it, a piece of notebook paper, roughly 3 x 5, lined in back, crayoned: "You're Blessed You will all ways Be" in cursive within three cumulus clouds. Shiny sun upper right. Blue sky. Green grass and trees, the bottom landscape.

Pick it up.

Wear it.

Keep it.

Why not.

For now.

Gleðilegt nýtt ár!

glomming onto the gloaming

not the small hours, not the wee small hours; no, the vespered sundown; sundowning; in the gloaming the time to call her or see her; they call it sundowning, the fantasies and mirages; her sun was going down; not especially gloomy the gloaming; roaming; the appointed hour; the scripted words; the replay; redux; reduction, reduced; trudging through the sliding doors; let it slide; unfinished food; asleep; this was our appointed hour; our daily bread; now in this unappointed hour a vacancy; a lost habit; missing link; a skipped beat of suspended crepuscular convention; twilight; twilight of the goddesses; sons and daughters; what comes after the gloaming

lag time

You said it didn't bother you.
It didn't.
So what's the big problem then.
It's not a problem. It bothers me now, though.
Why now.
I don't know. There's a lag time.
Lag time.
Yeah, I need time to process things.
Process. Like a food processor. Or a word processor.
No. Nothing like that.
So, it's like what.
It's like nothing. I just need time to process. My emotions.
Lag time.
Correct.
What do they lag behind.
What.
I said, what do those emotions lag behind.
Nothing. Forget I mentioned it.
Is it like jet lag.
I said drop it.
Laggard.
Name-caller. Haggard name-caller.

moral dyslexia

amoral alexia. moral compass. no direction home. myopic dystopic. tropical frieze. freeze frame. slide show. side show. sow what. so wheat. grain of salt. gain of fault. pain default. vaunted vault. valued vale. valley of tears. and dolls. barbaric and kenning. keening and moaning. unkenneled rage. untrammeled age. savant or sage. moron of phage. morn of plague. eve of destruction. dawn's early light. night's early flight. sky blue. blue sky. brain storm. sturm und drang. dragon heels. wheels heal. round and round. canon law. lex mex. less more. more or less. adieu you.

Dog Days

After the deed was done or maybe before: she mused "you're like my dog" an elegy a loving postcard mailed to me sprawled there summery spent beside her as she sketched her affection toward Rusty or was it Sandy maybe Rex his loyalty love obedience and companionship so I edged into sleep an afternoon nap against her arm her leg her side as she read, her Rolex off, her diamond stud earrings on the nightstand, cues for unshackling as a prelude to unbridled intimacy. So I gathered I knew what she meant by the canine compliment. I was fine with it not a slight not a condescension but a treasured tableau in her memory's slide show and now mine as well fast forward a decade plus and Doug is dying, everybody knew it would be the last day, a Friday, after Debby had told me the previous Sunday "get up there, he's not coming home, he wants to ask you something," now his last, and my last "goodbye, I love you." Doug in his hospital bed looked at me as I brimmed into tears and he said "it's all right it'll be all right" then he tousled my hair he ruffled the hair on my head as he would have to Divitt the same dog who nearly bit my arm off on the night of Bush v. Gore in 2000 because I grabbed his bone, Divitt, a perfect name echoing the divots of every weekend's rounds of golf, a so-called sport I never played, with Doug or anyone else. I stared into your eyes and I knew it was okay and would be after and forevermore. You asked me to "read something" at a memorial and who knew that request would be such a gift, such a gem, because we never so much as once even swung a golf club together, unlike all those other partners on the fairways and greens who I figured knew you more and deeper didn't they, so why me? Why ask me of all people sort of like what they say about Christ and the disciples he picked why me they all presumably said. Such a revelation, the first of that year, 2005, the discovery of death's secret surprise, death's wink and a nod, the magician's rabbit out of the black upside down top hat. Richard, speaking of golf, six months later, November, in Florida, "let's go hit some, go to the driving range," straw hats, blazing sun, gently kindly "hold your hands this way, yes no that's it, careful, slower, no that's fine" almost hit golfers in the nearby rough but that CLICK! oh God! the sound of it the jolt in the hands resonating echoing into the arms the soul. Richard my brother, we never said half brother, too weak too tired to swing, sitting on the bench, the blistering blaze of light, its merciless scorch. And this was the slide in the carousel, the slide show, freeze-framed, after his death, the ferry to the yonder shore, this the wallet-sized image, the frame of future sentiment and loss, your plantation straw hat the artifact of a Monday afternoon, the farewell in the dark Tuesday morning, you in your bed, did I say good bye or I love you, probably not, though we both knew, to find out later your childhood prayerbook and rosary beads were there under your pillow. Dogstar pointed tooth hair of the dog long in the tooth my life as a dog doggerel mongrel sobs and all that. Then, last year, Maggie put down, across the boulevard from where I sit, tapping keys in the battleship dun afternoon, her eye left open, where did she go, so quickly, invisibly, effortlessly, the hideous simplicity the reckless rudeness of death, to every man woman child dog or leaf, you me and everyone and everything else. I went into my car in the parking lot of the animal hospital. Hospital. Inhospitable Last Exit. A rainy Friday. I wept against the steering wheel. How can I ever leave this parking lot. What can I do. Where can I go. What do I do now. Where's that sought surprise. Under the Tuscan sun, the Syracuse rain.
 

who holds the keys

Chain-link fence outside the power plant. Padlocked. A padlock one could buy at the hardware store. Cabinet for the electrical service into the building, protected by bollards. Padlocked. Switchbox out on Route 41, middle of nowhere. Same. Electrical panel in the subway. Padlocked. Gate at the stadium entrance. Iron railing around the government offices. Same. Same. The briefcase with the codes. The restaurant closed for nonpayment of taxes. Padlocked. Padlocked. Her jewelry box, his gun cabinet, their storage locker. Same. Same. Same. Her secret, his secret, their secret. Who has the key. Keys. The missile silo. The hidden tabernacle. Silent shelter. Cave. Padlocked. Shackled. Handcuffed. Locked. The safe deposit. The vault. Who the keys, who the will. Where the keys. How. When.

new-tone-ian

Scrub it clean. Erase it. Start over. Fresh start. Reboot. January. Month of Janus, that two-faced Roman deity. Patron of beginnings. And endings. Can you have one without the other? Sacred amnesia. Salutory forgetting. A new anew. Newsome. New(s). Renewal. (But how can new be new again without being old?) More than the absence of old. Metaphysical electro-shock therapy.