Poetry

Grief Is an albatross A missing birthday card Not being able to call when my cat dies Wondering who will remind me I'm smart Being jealous of women with mothers Hating men for not understanding Looking about 10 years older, overnight Snapping Nightmares A giddy addiction to "Two and a Half Men" Missing your stuffed cabbage Wanting to sleep so I can maybe dream of you Worrying that you didn't need to die that day Being tired of being sad Remembering your laugh and your snort How you made fun of me for not farting How you were glad I had my cat but he maybe scared you a little Your flirtatiousness Your schoolteacher scolding if I used poor grammar Asking me what a word meant as I learned more of them in grad school Your tenderness Your unconditional love

If heartache is an avalanche, grief is a whisper, a relentless whisper That ratchets up the heart Blocks the arteries Then departs Your loss it seems was simple The quieting of your mind, Reflected by my dimple So like yours, into hours I pour Poetry... ... Youth attacked you with disdain The perfection of Southern class Masked by a complex longing Sated in time, by a more easygoing mind Quixotic, you threw off the cloak And into substance choked Breaking free, as all birds do Now I'm a little he, a little you Remembering how I read you Keats From that colourful burrito place on Chancery Lane Was it a vision, or a waking Dream? ...

We spoke on my birthday, Aug. 19. 'Look at the flowers in Stockholm' you said. 'I remember how beautiful the flowers were in Europe.' And I told you I'd dressed to match the decor in green and yellow. 'Ah,' you sighed. 'Yellow is your favourite colour...' Not an angel, a force - a fierce, tenacious, glorious star Exploding in skies, illuminated by wit, armed by Grace, charm, intellect. Our Texas nights, our slamming-door fights, Trips to Corpus, nights on parallel couches, Happy sometimes, aging, Grouches. 'I'm glad you told me what you did about how that was one of the best years of your life,' Mom wrote. 'It made having bought that house worth it.' Twenty-thousand square feet. A den we called 'the Man Cave'. There were huge cockroaches especially at night, and my cat Wally would study them, possibly eat them when my back was turned. The sound of your car purring into the carport, the day you admitted you'd n

A love like this too strong, I weak, I seek perfection in your purple skies your liberty rising a night with the death of a prince I came here seeking fortune misfortune followed me nine eleven crushed us my spirit not mushed as faces of the missing everywhere, my greenwich village friends a toast to those she knew, the scent of death an ashy reminder for all I left, a Love like this too strong, no dad I don't want to go Home flags in my windows cutoffs and u-turns and lost leaves to tables set for one many loves followed, but you drew me near, I learned up, down, east, west, learned to travel the subway system like an ecstatic rat, asked Edward Burns a question at Tribeca kissed under the stars on the Upper West Side, bought date shoes at a cheap store on Broadway, then explained to a younger man why I could look younger too in starlight. A love like this too strong, fifteen years, and just as strong, you split me in two, but