Your father almost clips the puppies
starting the motor on the outboard.
They’re playing in the shallow water
near where we moored for the afternoon
but it’s October, and it’s time to go
and your father was born with little patience
for the weak. Just about 11 months ago
your brother overdosed and died
but by then, at least, he wasn’t still at home
sleeping in his childhood bed. Your mom doesn’t
process what your dad is doing with the motor
and the dogs, so she freezes
to the pleather copilot chair. But you,
your fight response kicks in.
Can you not see them, you yell
above the engine’s jaundiced roar. Now
there will be more yelling. Your parents
got the dogs this summer because
time and language are faulty rungs
on a ladder someone else offers.
And anyway why make the effort
when you’re already at the bottom
of the well. Above us a gull, a goose,
a heron—something passes
in the clear and quiet sky; a presence
demanding nothing of our scene below.
In the morning you and I will leave again
for the city, where pigeons, sparrows
and starlings haunt the cracks for bread
and days too full for silence.
Shivaree (traditional): south-central Pennsylvania
Do you remember
what I wore? Work
ing backward, we
finished college in
the morning; took a
final-final in some
basement. I had a
throat infection and
swam an hour
before the ceremon
ies started. By noon
the flags were
unfurled, the tru
mpets blare, and the
townsfolk crowd at
every door to watch
the long black
motorcade crawl up
our historic drag.
Ornamental pear
trees wept their
fluttering blossoms,
anointing the air
like semen, as the
yearly burning al
ways demands the
utmost respect and
pomp.
We are only here for
a good time, I
remind you, but
when I move to
leave one celebrat
ion for another your
slouching posture
tells me I am
wrong. The night
before we’d had
triple whiskey from
our second favorite
bartender; I’d dance
d on laps and s
moked indoors and
no one put me out.
But we‘ve slept so
little lately that now
in the unsentimental
light I mistake a
word less language
for understanding.
So maybe it’s not a
good time, I soothe
but at least it’s not
for ever.
Later we attended
a burning soir e,
where the sun
passed out from
wine and weed and
untenable jubilation.
You sought rem
inders of the past
and reassurances of
the future among
the faces of our
cohort, but those
remaining merely
wept as pear trees in
their final
understanding.
Meanwhile, in the
traffic circle around
which the parade
concluded, revelers
were stacking
faggots, planing
platforms and
raising high the
roofbeams for
the burning’s pyre.
Were you the
bridegroom, taller
than the tallest
man? and I the rail
that Lincoln split to
build his frontier
home.
Lifetimes back a
match was struck
to shape a pillar
wailing through the
desert. I donned
your white linen
blazer as we
approached the
circle and drifting
ash began to fleck
its weave. What’s
everybody waiting
for, I asked among
the faces greased
with paint in antici
pation of dancing
flame reflection
but beneath the
humming breath the
cracking boards and
the slumping of
your hips I never
heard the
answer
J. Freeborn is a teacher and the anthology books managing editor at The Poetry Society of New York. They have recent work in Occulum, Dream Pop, voicemail poems, and elsewhere.
RESURRECTION mag 