A Farewell to Jack Dawson
Remember when we met?
Your eyes on my body, slurred compliments
And lazy lips filled the lapse of melody and rhythm.
Like a magnet to a fridge, you clung.
I took you home to rest your head,
Not the one that sprang and leaped with impulse,
Not even the one between your legs.
But that which housed the forgotten way
Of the forgotten self
That rose to find me.
Sleep, dear boy.
My own forgetfulness dangerously bowed to recognition
Of breath and body and unsuccessful escape;
The key is here, in my sorrow.
Just for the night, I’ll enter the maze, end up in the meadow
With white lilies and blue hydrangeas (hy-dran-juhz) and perfect memory.
I wish you followed me in to greet you.
Your nature-
Your essence-
Your form-
In the wake of my return.
A month passes and I don’t reach out.
Infatuation finds me often. I don’t even think twice,
Until gravity pulled at my feet and sense became illusion
And I saw you for the first time.
Slurred compliments catch the waves of aura
And forge communion without invitation
That is, without salvation as
Married potential don’t buy time.
I visit you on your campus to learn how your body talks.
It speaks better English than your vocal tract,
Or maybe it speaks soul
Or love.
Or trauma. It speaks to me in tongues,
And to my body in prose.
And to my amnesia in surety.
As you huddled my back
With inspiration and smooth skin, I remembered I was searching, too.
I guess we’re dating now, for all of a week.
You leave the country, I prepare to rejoin God in three days.
It’s been some months and I’m still preparing.
The phone rings with a 16 digit number, or so.
I’m perfect, I’m smart, I’m sexy, I’m funny, I’m the one.
But married potential doesn’t buy time
And we have none to spare.
It’s been a year plus and I’m still preparing.
I need you to finish the job. Impale the flesh I dwell in
With madness and improbable cause and inverted sight.
So I reach out and spill my guts and forget how to play
How to live
How to breathe.
But I remember my God
And you hold up your end of the contract:
You pinned me down and watched me bleed.
When Easter arrives, I’ll understand.
We are not in love.
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