Interview

I sought you out hoping to find my prophet,
but I only succeeded in burying a martyr.
Outside, the wind in the trees
sounded like howling, mournful ghosts,
and I got it –

there was nothing else to learn,

no one else to be.

 

We’d been dying together the whole time –
while my hair turned white then fell out
while my neck and knees developed their aches
and my elbows learned to click.
I’m old enough, finally, to know –
I’m the descendent of the poet,
not the poet;

I’m in line for the throne, but not the heir.

I carry pain with me like it’s debt,

and while I keep up with the payments,

the principal remains.

 

Skeptically, you looked me over
before saying in an accent I’ve lost,

“Yer a fool. You are foolish.
And you have no idea, or you’ve forgotten –
all the nights you don’t fall asleep cryin’;

all the nights you don’t pass out drunk;
all the mornin’s you don’t wake up alone.

It seems to me ya’got everything

and you’ve come here
lookin’ fer nothin’.

Yer a grave robber.”

That may well be,
but this would all go easier if we were drunk.

“I’ll get my keys.”

I knocked back a heavy pour of Fernet;

you lit up a cigarette and eyeballed me.

“Why Superman?” you asked loud enough to be heard
over the jukebox.

I mean – I’m not into saving the world or anything.
I just like the idea of floating in space –
Earth blue and white below me, cape flowing out behind
in the weightlessness,

and it’s silent, solitary, peaceful.

Who do you pick?

“I pick ma’self. No one else is comin’ to save me.”

That’s bleak.

“I guess –

but nothin’ is ever anything anyway,
and I guess I’d rather be bleak

than peddle false hope.”

We downed another round of shots;

I lit one of your cigarettes

without asking.

“Do you always come off this needy and anxious?”

I think so, yes.

“Do you care?”

I care about cool night air like velvet on my skin;

the yellow sulfur glow of streetlights;
half-remembered bars and drunk country singers

carrying us to last call.

I care about two-lane mountain roads tracing
glacial paths down to the valleys below.
I care about muggy summers and unexpected thunderstorms;

sitting forever at the low water crossing,

waiting till it’s safe to pass.

“All right! All right! You care – fine, you care.
So, tell me then – tell me what yer lookin’ for;

ask me a straight question because – finally –

there’s no more metaphors allowed.”

I wanna ask you about Marlboro Reds and Jameson
Irish Whisky;

tell me what you read between the lines upon lines
of cocaine;
what does unrequited love howl at a 3AM moon,

and what does it hope to hear in return?

“I … I can’t tell you. I don’t know.”

I knew that;

and while we hoped and dreamed –
while we lived –
the days crumbled in our grasp,

like ash.

 

Smashed, melted into the vinyl upholstery,
watching the rain and the neon logo glow streak the night.
I couldn’t feel my face anymore;

my body had gone fuzzy, slightly out of focus,

so so so comfortable.
You were driving
like nothing is ever anything,
but I saw your pupils, man – I knew.
You laughed at me, slouched across the bench seat
like I’d been de-boned,

and that’s when you asked:

“Is this all it’s ever gonna be?”

So apropos,
and I wanted to say No! 

It hardly ever was, almost never is –
but the words that might explain why I couldn’t draw a
map leading you from there to here
just wouldn’t form in my mouth
because frankly, with you –

nothing was ever anything.

And so, your question passed gently

through the silence

unanswered.