Owning

Out in the parts of home they don't tell you exist
is where you realize if you stayed, how little you'd miss
the air that forms the pockets, makes the cysts
that pop and break when you fall in the place you left.
The key to the crux:
"Not too far, but far enough,"
There's more stop signs than road lights,
you feel better rolling your luck.
Here the steps aren't so tired,
the doors need less paint.
They could be more worn out
but they hold themselves like saints,
owning every ounce
while they hardly ever flout.
Doubts turn determined to figure it out.
They know you want to make it work,
and that you never knew how

Mary

I think the fear of old age is willing to wait
like a parked car.
I think it'll use the time to get the motions of the shakes
just right.
I think it'll take you down memory lane
all the time.
It'll be where you remember never having to think
about the first step off a curb
and where your eyes squint to better see what shrinks
as it passes,
while you feel it walking away.
I think you'll see the old street second guess
how it let itself go.
I think the new neighbors will passively come through as you concentrate
on how the old ones won't leave your eyes.
I think you'll lay in bed til almost afternoon, a paralyzed irate
over how you couldn't make yourself get up any sooner.

I think your grandson watches it all happen,
feeling that paralysis all the same.
I bet he imagines a baby girl with your smile,
who he'd call by your name,
trying to make up for not knowing how to respond to
watching you fade away
Mary where'd you get to?
Mary I won't forget where you've been

Long Weekend

It's another long weekend I've spent wading as if in an empty pool,
waiting for the water to come.
It's here, but I didn't quite see it this way, as rain.
I'll go home and watch The Wire,
or something less urbanely Romantic.
I'll put off asking, "Aren't you tired of coming here?"
to let myself get a quiet frantic.
And, man, I pick it up like it's going out of style
hoping if I hold onto it long enough
I will pass this trial,
with a jury of my peers
ranging from exceptional to accepting
to how they react in the face of their fears.
But, man, I'll tell you what,
that seems not to be how it goes.
The fear always comes to the front,
it doesn't matter if I froze
to try to shake it.

I'd like to tell you a happy ending,
I really would.
But that would mean I've put down my pen
to start doing what I should.
It's another idle, long weekend
where I have desire to spare.
And when it sits inside me
it doesn't matter what's fair.
I'll worry myself to sleep tonight.

Postmarked

It's a corner place in Collingswood,
I daydreamt us there.
Just a casual place to kill the time
til we went where we could stare
into the heart of everything around us.
We would have held hands,
and walked almost in stride.
We would've stayed til the sun left,
forcing us inside.

This was before we died.
This was before we got sick.

We wound up at St. Vincent's,
the hospital where my hero passed.
The staff said he could write all the right words,
But his heart never stood a chance.

I think the injections got to you.
Feltenstein and his needles, without a doubt.
They always filled your blood, always ran you cold.
They changed everything you knew anything about
for the worse.

And me, I caught worry.
It wrapped around my skin.
It squeezed til it got in,
til I was never heard from again.

Now we both lay in the yard,
different plots to be sure.
We went too gentle into the night,
our eyes tore apart our hearts.

I'll Take You Nowhere

There are tired subjects
in my stomach
and I'm gonna churn them out.
I'll try to keep my voice down,
I know how it gets
when you shout.
So first things first,
I'm feelin nothin
and from watchin you,
I know it gets worse.
Tell me, why'd you teach me,
of all things,
how to believe
it never gets better
than the place your heart restlessly settles?
It's against your will, I know,
to let things build up til you can throw
damage through them in the shapes
of your fists and tongue.
And your eyes, when did they die
and leave a shallow pool
of worn out iris saying,
"I never got to love you like I wanted,"
when did that happen?
I'd like to pretend
I'm drawing pictures of nothing important.
But this is everything that matters.