my goal
had been
to trap
a kiss
to build
a long relationship
of trust
to maybe
marry her
someday
in a hall
with dim lights

but there
we just watched
the ignition
of the first
red-flecked flames
and scrambled
with numb hands
for dry wood

your way was always to make your pockets
more predictable
a trying task–etiquette
you kept adjusting

i noticed then how your pockets’ change
came and went
like socks in the laundry or a boy’s
first wallet–

an orchestra’s trumpets
or a tympani’s roll

you told me once about the mechanics
of it all–
about gum ball machines and
pay phone calls

your thirsty deep addiction to a
moving mouth
and to the habit-forming way of
caffeine cups

and open guitar shells

and the hypnotizing certainty of
a wet cardboard sign–
dark words written in ash and
spelling sympathies

how like a magnet lining
a diner’s door
you’re drawn to drowning donuts
in tea

ii.

the alarm had been set
early
when you left
bing sang out the deep notes
of that
aged churning
post-war tune through fm
static
at eight forty five
(your footsteps already echoes
given out
like discount coupons)
that famous line

brother
can you spare
a dime

iii.

if you can ever make it back along
the toll-booth filled american highways
bring your pockets to my house
and on the floor
we can count out
the things i’ve found in the couch
and talk about change as a pun
passing
from till
to purse
to bus
to fountain’s base

and worry
together
of all the
places
i’ve let my hands
explore
to keep my
small
fragile
fingers
from freezing

leaves were tumbling out
from wire fences
and occasional
car horns
kept me from the cold
as i carried
a plastic bag
full of boxes
of cigarettes
from the corner shop
poked finger holes
into the handles walking
until they tore apart
and i had to carry
the whole thing
like a choked turkey

you had come to mind
like hard-drive whir
a noise i can’t
connect with
but know is working
something out–
our days were numbered
even then
in the cool
of picnics
when grins
could be plucked
from the trees

and after all
you’re nothing now
but a blown out candle
sleeping in the suburbs–
i still have a picture
you signed
in my wallet
there are hearts on it
scratch-coloured
with red
ball-point pen
beside your bangs
and a flower bulb
shaped sun
setting

this city’s stuffing the wind
down my collar
and the night’s forever old
kicking gravel into the dusk
the stars are flickering
disrupted
by the atmosphere
and all the smoke
we produce
pushing out
of our warm mouths

all their wasted
elements
lay strewn
like car parts
in a car crash
disconnected
from their whole–
sharp curled caesuras
lie like rusting scythes
crystallized clichés
are compacted
by the pull of gravity
and crushing couplets
now the broken rhymes and lines
of pentameter
which once stretched in nuanced
beat
are folded up
within themselves
unused
like notes for jeans’ pockets–
syllables are smeared together
in graphite mess

when the excavation
first began
we’d brush away
the gritty dirt
on nothing more
than letters
and when lucky
words
and proper names
emboldened into
larger text
(belinda
ferrara
satan and
a tyger twice)
and a bizarre amount
of birds
already extinct
for years
(the sky-lark
albatross
a raven
and the nightingale)

but then the heydays came
when experts
found cachés
a hundred metres deep
of fragile voltas
still intact
and quatrains rose
and often even
folio leaves
like fossils
of the foliage
of deciduous trees
to give us strength–
finding food
in a famine
we were renewed

but after time
the work grew grim
the scientists
immersed in steely instruments
of lexicography
became unsure
and damned the progress
of their galling task–
to work the eggshell fragments
into cohesion
to attach a title
to a work
to appease the spirit
of the author
was blind and endless
like guessing for a lifetime
at a question
with no answer
on a pilgrimage
without
a destination

the poems themselves
could tell us
all we craved to know
of authors’ minds
and history’s worth
and truth in all its many forms–
reciprocally they broke our quest
and we broke them
by failing

so we sit
and think
by drawing in the breath
of what our eyes can
still see
of what is past
or passing
and what we have to keep
in library walls
on paper sheets–
we ask confused
what poem is here
what words are these
and what letters forming words
what lines of ink connecting
and who’s hand is holding
which muse
what thought had come
to spring it all
to be

the men beyond their years
were seriously engrossed
upon
the checkered squares–
rooks ran ranks
a bishop gave
check
in sly surprise
the match developed
under scrutiny
of those surrounding–
silent judges
nodded out
touch-move
strictness
or blamed
the weaker structure
of several pawns

and through the square
the wind had cut a path–
young dream-eyed faces
on adjacent tables
had opted to play
checkers
held the uniform
identical
cylindrical
stones
of their opponents
and marveled in the magic
of eventual
kings
whose success
on a second plane
in taller stature
could take them
backwards
to capture
the rest

the teens
of the borough
had stolen
pieces from some sets
the night before
laid them on the road
for trucks to trample–
took the king’s
crossed top
to pierce the chest
of a dead
crow

and children running
through the stools
in calmer moments
asked their parents
for names
of the games
being played
(though called the corner spires
castles
when the elderly
couldn’t hear)
learned away
their summer days

against the edge
of the cobbled stones
no one cared
to notice
(concentrating
too much
on the competition)
as a toddler
took the board
bent
like a tent
to make a home
in the grass
for things
imagined

trucks honked
their messy horns
and i swatted
the last
of this season’s
mosquitoes
as the bus
ensured another
late arrival
to your leaning
rented room

i chewed
at an apple
core
frowning at
a future county fair
and dreamed
of a car
with cassette deck
and windows moving
by motor
like magic–
i envisioned
in the bus shelter
glass
the draft
of our speed
blowing blond
strands of hair
behind
your ears

the
wisconsin
road sign
was fractured
in the droplets
running
on the windshield

my suitcase
zipper
closed only
halfway

standing
in the street
yellow raincoat
and odd green
boots
you held out
your hand

out in the alleys
of the city
cane-catering
to clued-out crows
my wisdom
missing her
reaches
only
empty spaces

back then
at the trains
she’d steal
fresh produce
rolling in
from the airport–
exotic gifts
originating
in chile
or jamaica
and i’d give knowledge
in return–
acumen i gleaned
from miraculous
lives
i’d lived
in books
or advice i’d toss
from park benches
in pond-edge
polemics

when i think of her
i think of her
as a pigeon
parading a beak
of bread–
her mind
a feather-duster’s
dust

yet mine is anvil-heavy–
fixed always
on her head
against
the fortwright tracks
and rail ties
gripping gravel
through
a forest
of splintered wood

/ / /

i spend most days
forgetting my years
and her art
in the movement
of hands and arms
in plentiful
dexterity

i spend most days
amongst the beggars
trading
paper-coloured
food stamps
for discount
station tickets
as though i’m hopeful
for a destination’s
peace
and sworn to
the mantra
of traveling
light–

i’m moving fast
and hungry