Campaign Song of the Parasite

I was lying on the couch listening to acoustic music when it became clear that I had an invasive parasite in my intestines. How I knew this is no subject for a poem (though it makes a good PBS documentary). I wanted to blame someone. Preferably one of the Republican candidates for president. But I couldn’t make the charge stick. Each had a prepared statement. A byte of sound. They made the rounds of the Sunday talk shows. Their denials were believable. Even to a man suffering from a gut ache. Democrats worked to heal me but their solutions were tangled. I couldn’t follow. Arguments ensued between Republicans and Democrats. Then a slim hand reached out of the radio speaker. A woman’s hand. It touched my cheek. Traced the curve of my ear. She whispered, listen. Republicans bowed their heads to pray. Democrats stood barefoot and still in the grass. She sang of tracks being erased, wood smoke, a snake, and disappearing. It was beautiful. But, truth to tell, it did nothing for my digestion. Soon enough, I excused myself to use the bathroom. In grand compromise, both parties looked askance at me as I shuffled quickly from the room hoping for relief.

BYOB

I collect notes in bottles. The notes are everywhere but I have to bring my own bottles. “For the love of God, I need tickets!” blew across the sidewalk yesterday. I put it in a ketchup bottle. Two days ago, a wish list in crayon outside a bathroom. It said please five times. Each a different color. I put it in a miniature Coca-Cola bottle. Directions to a house in Liverpool. A love letter that fell from a garbage truck. Half a gas receipt saying, “Mike, don’t forget to g-”. Inside a pickle jar, I’ve wedged a scrap of sheetrock that says, “I need a woman. And a fish sandwich.” I’m going on a road trip next week. Packing the bottles in boxes. I’ll throw some in rivers. One is meant for a creek outside Roanoke. Most I’ll sail on the ocean's receding tide. But I’ll place three specially. I wrote the notes myself. I haven’t signed them. One, in a flat plastic bottle, goes inside a cairn I’ll pass on Mount Washington when I’m fifteen. The second, inside an empty root beer can from the fish and chips shop, will sit at the base of a tree on Hill Island until I chop it down with Chris when we are twelve. Finally, a glass ink bottle, wedged under the porch steps of the house where my godfather and I will sit when I’m only two and he’s years from the grave. Just the cap of it will show, catching the sun. I’ll return from vacation a new man. By then, I hope the bottles will have all found their way back to me. Their notes preserved and clear. Their messages all received.

The Way

I was raking leaves into the street. The city picks them up. I don’t know where they take them. The dog watched me work. He raised his head as a car pulled to a stop near me. A woman inside needed directions. My knowledge of the streets and avenues is encyclopedic. A cigarette dangled from her red lips. She spoke through it. Smoke rolled out the window. She asked, Do you know where God lives? I leaned on my rake to think about it. The dog walked up behind me. He growled. Dogs know. I imagined the streets. Unfolded a paper map inside my mind. The woman waited. She took the cigarette from her lips. It was stained with lipstick. I pointed down the street. Without understanding any of it, I explained the way. It sounded very nearby. She put the cigarette back in her mouth. Put the car in gear. She thanked me. I made a strange motion with my hand, saying, you can’t miss it. I’m sure I won’t, she said, and drove away. I stood in the street. Held the rake. A few more leaves fell at my feet. Her car disappeared around the corner. I stared after it for a long time. The dog whimpered. Or maybe that was me.

The Funeral Director's Son

This may or may not have happened. Someone died. My father drove the black station wagon. I rode with him. Snow was falling. We arrived at the house of the survivors. Dad took up his red clipboard folio. He threw his cigarette out into the snow. It was already an inch deep. He told me to wait. He’d be out soon. He left the keys. It was cold. I knew how to run the heat. He said, okay. As though it was alright. As if to say, death is just a thing that happens, death is just a thing. He said, okay, and walked through the snow toward the house. His black coat, felt hat, and white hair disappeared. The flakes were huge. They drifted down side to side. Like feathers, they fell on the windshield. I imagined angels. Insubstantial figments. Their wings coming apart. Feathers falling down. Melting into nothing at all. I watched them fall. I wondered when Dad would come take me home. I felt myself grow cold. And imagined death. I figured it was about like this. Sitting in a car outside a house. Getting cold. The funeral director disappearing inside to help a family learn how to live without. Then snow covers everything. The white world goes dark and disappears.

The Rain at Night

When I was young I knew. The rain at night, it can swallow you whole. A person goes out in the night rain at their own risk. My father went. Many a night. He was a funeral director. The phone on the wall rang. He answered, standing at the counter. He never stretched the cord. Yes, he said. Yes. Yes. Yes. He hung up, picked up the sheet on which he had written numbers, a name, the end of a story. I looked out the window into the dark. Heard the rain talk to the window. When I looked back, my father was pulling on his long coat. Settling his felt hat. His hair was so white. His keys jingled in his pocket as he walked out, slamming the back door. It shook the house, disturbed the dog. And I wondered if he would be swallowed by the rain that night. He never was. He brought back the dead. Old men. Older women. A young boy on Christmas Eve. The rain swallowed that kid’s parents whole. My father tried. But they were gone just as much as the boy. I knew it. When I was young.

Old Men Leaving Parties

It was clear when I left the party
That although I was over eighty I still had
A beautiful body.
                 --Mark Strand, “Old Man Leaves a Party”

Leaving the party, I crossed the graveyard and walked out onto the beach. Following behind me, another old man I recognized, vaguely, called out my name across the distance. I took off my shirt and dropped it by the lake shore. The wind pulled at my hair, which though it had turned white was still thick and luxurious. It was hair to pull your fingers through. Hair to dream of alone in bed at night. But it was the muscles of my back and the raw power of my legs which over-filled me with pride. They pushed me onward past the lake, the city, the burning countryside. Out past the old gravestones to where my hole was already dug. I stood beside it, breathing in the night air, looking down through the darkness at a party. From out the hole, climbed a man, over eighty years old, leaving that party. He stopped to marvel at his beautiful body, staring at me as though I were his mirror. He turned and began walking. I would have followed him anywhere. I called out to him but could only remember my own name and he was already so far away.

From Out of the Attic

Going through the attic of your mind, you come across a box that used to be so dear. You looking at it and remember that time. You see that person you used to be. You try to smile, but instead turn your head and stare out the attic window. The sun is low in the sky. October has come to chase away the summers. A squirrel sits on a branch outside the window. You see what a horrible thing a squirrel is. A rat with a bushy tail. You’ve heard that before. Its bite as rabid and infected as a sewer drain. As dangerous as a box you’ve pushed to the back of your mind. You recoil and hit your head hard on the exposed beam. You curse and bend over in pain. Your closed eyes orbit stars. You open them against the pain. Your one hand rests on the box, the other holds tight to the bump forming on the back of your skull. You reach down. Pick up the box. And you walk down all the flights of stairs and out the door to the curb where you drop the box hard in the street. You turn back toward the house, looking up at the attic window. The squirrel is there. Doing no harm. You’ll be damned if you don’t think the thing is cute and wonder what it was you feared. The October air feels warm. This is your home. This is your time. This is who you are. Tonight while you sleep, the box will be taken away.