Autobiography no. 17

The day she told him I existed,
while I was working
he showed up on her doorstep
with two cards from a drugstore
inside of two envelopes.

He gave her a keychain
and a figurine of a classic film villain
and a bouquet of roses and there were
one dozen white roses and one dozen red roses
and two dozen pink roses
and he brought her a clear glass vase
for all of them to live in.

She put her keys on the keychain
and the figurine next to her toothpaste
and I moved the flowers into the vase
already on her windowsill.

The petals opened slowly
and I kissed her every morning as the sun rose.
I changed the water
until the leaves and petals all had withered.

After a few days the leaves curled in upon themselves
And they fell and drifted listlessly in the mouth of the vase.
Soon four dozen dreams bloomed, desolate
with the dull brown tinge of decay,
and when the very last bulb opened up
I threw the flowers away.

Autobiography no. 16

Five years before they put her into the ground
we were sitting together and drinking on the steps of a campus dormitory
that neither of us lived in.
She asked what I wanted out of life and I began talking animatedly
about my literary pretensions, and how I wouldn’t always write
bad short stories like I had written those last months.
After a few minutes passed
the wind suddenly covered my face in her cigarette’s smoke.
She was smiling at me and shaking her head.
The oak leaves were skittering across the pavement
and the air was cool with autumn
and the moon was bright and nearly full
and with the moon’s voice she said
“If you dream it, it is a dream.”

In Search of an Honorable Death

you cannot slide a dull steak knife or razorblade
across the soft white hollow of your wrists
or let oil and gunmetal be the last heavy tastes upon your tongue

you cannot leap from cliffs to trees and rock below
or dive from the passenger seat of a car
hurtling down the sunbaked interstate
to roll your skin over the concrete and heat

rope or water?
poison or fire?
a simple thing will never do

you can let your teeth rot and fall lurching with heart disease
you can smoke cigarettes or have a few glasses of wine with dinner
every day and wait for your organs to fail
you can care about what happens to animals or gods or humanity
and watch the lines of worry sprawl from your ankle to your neck

or you can not give too much of a damn
love a few people truly
smile at your woman in the morning
never accomplish much
write one good poem
(not this one or one like it)
and no one will wear black at your funeral