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Enlisted
He once told me he wanted to
live in a place
Where the rain falls up.
He had seen it down at his feet
Before tasting the blurry wet in his eyes.
I replied that I don't even
know about waking
On the wrong side of the bed,
Never mind the ocean rolling inward
And the trees rooting their stumps in the sky.
He told me to hear life in
every eye-stroke
And rhythm in a lightening storm.
Poetry swallowed his words and
Ice skates carried his step.
His ideas spread out like a
quilt
As he sat in my car. Brushing his teeth
On the drive to church, he asked
If I would let myself be happy now.
Eyes glazed, lidless on the
spinning
Pavement. (I swear my wheels didn't move)
I could never answer
His questions how I liked.
He told me he's leaving tomorrow
To get buried in hand grenades
And that unconventionalities
Will have to wait.
I thought I yelled something
about being a number,
Dead, in chronological order.
(His name is too loud, hangs too heavily
for such a bloody finale marked on a list)
Instead my silence shivered,
naked.
My limbs: black berry branches, nothing more
Than twigs dangling treats-the words
That fell from my mouth, drop-jawed.
He plucked my support before
I knew it was ripe.
And packed his pride
In a trunk.
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