Waking
People are not stories, no, not really.
We never start at the start of the story,
Even our own — do you remember how
You began? We arrive eyes closed and wake
To everything. You’ll spend many holidays
Before you’ll see how beautiful your aunt
Looked on her wedding day. She looked not unlike
A girl you used to date. Her private griefs,
Nigh-unspeakable tragedies, a husband
Who killed himself because he was infertile
And wanted her to be free, will be told
Long after you will have learned to take her
For furniture. We treat our family
Like furniture, the clutter in our lives
That lets us recline after a long day.
That sounds trite but you would know if your couch
Went missing. But you also don’t think much
About your couch, no more than your cousins,
And here are many gathered today, at the wake,
A collection cobbled together by
Life’s casual barbarism. People die before
Their stories do, even as the stories lie
Little read, because our eyes are closed.
There is both justice and injustice in that.
Hearing and Re-Hearing
The whale that swallowed Jonah died.
Then Jonah preached and felt he lied,
Because the city repented,
And fire fell not. God relented.
And these were divine words.
There are no voices left to hear.
The grounds for rehearing are sure
To cede to waves barren and blear.
The deep has this worthless allure,
Yet surface sands away.
The back proposes a barter:
Float face down upon the water,
Tilt the head a little in time,
Till you hear the reaping scythe chime.
This is how the crops bloom.
To Scylla
There is a sickness deep inside my soul.
To eat and drink with Fullbrights, Supreme Court
Clerks, and a future Nobel winner in
Medicine, to have written light lyrics,
Mere hours before, and to still feel your
Absence — and yet what could you contribute
To these discussions on Masoretic
Texts, Sea Peoples, and Anti-Federalists,
Other than your scaled, monstrous gravity?
Is this the task time has set before me?
To love Scylla because she is Scylla,
Is that my duty? Who sentenced me, and who
Was the counsel that surely malpracticed
Me? The law professor sitting to my
Left? He spends too much time on research of
Melancton Smith; the best lawyers spend their
Time — not practicing law. He has a crush
On this twenty-years younger speechwriter;
She, like my Scylla, is not here tonight.
My friend across from me — we have not said a word
Between us tonight — does not have the heart
To tell him that the girl desires a man
Of radically different complexion.
What does she lack the heart to say to me?
Someone requests some ketchup for the fries —
These European places insist on
Aioli from the start, but the red sauce
Is brought. I dip (we share the dish) and eat;
A little smudge appears on my lips. That’s
What it would be like, wouldn’t it? We kiss;
The blood drips from her lips and onto mine.