Where there was a meadow,
a shore. Wouldn’t that be beautiful, he thought—
to return by sea, which of course implies leaving, or a kind of relief
if we can allow it. And it’s true, the beginning of a painting may also be
the beginning of a room. How we followed the canvas toward a door
and there was color there, but no images, as if looking up through glass
from below a great city, the floating roots of a thing we tried to name
but even then, the words resembled nothing but themselves.
If only we knew how to say house and become house, or gate
and become gate, we might have the chance to recover—
that I might hear my name and become it. And if I see myself
in a photograph and remember how deeply I have loved and been loved,
if I can hold this past and still take all the hands
out of my poems, the light over the water, the light streaming through
windows, and then not the source of the light itself but only what’s lit—
if I could leave the rooms of my past behind, and return
to nothing, no body illuminated in waiting—
if I could refuse opening, being opened, at the shore,
at the lips, at my window—what’s left?
Who will answer the call of a friend, saying his father is home
from the hospital, on morphine, and barely anything at all?
My being so often shaped into a single moment like this,
curled up on the couch in the dark corner of my apartment
where all I can say is, I’m sorry, Jesús, I’m so so sorry, and listen to it ruin you.
But isn’t listening its own kind of love?
The stillness of being in time with another, before the world
reenters, and it feels yours again, and impossible.
It’s midnight here, which means the sun just left you.
And from where you’re sitting on the porch, I can see
the bougainvillea blossoming into the street
where once I stood outside your house and took your picture.
I can see its glowing interior, your sisters moving between rooms,
waiting for him to die. I used to pray for this—
those final moments with my father, his arms around my body
the way a child might hold on to a memory
before it becomes one. Sometimes the image was all I had.
It was so important. It was the saying, the holding onto, the right now
on the floor, something different in the next life kind of knowing.
I am coming to understand this is about me, as I’ve always hoped it wouldn’t be—
my name on your tongue, three thousand miles away.
A fucking nightmare, Michael. If only you knew
how to find him after this. But how will I know?
How will I know how to do that?
See more poems from Issue 20.1 by purchasing a copy in our online store. Digital copies only $5.
