I can’t remember tomorrow
What I said tonight
Jack Spicer, “15 False Propositions Against God”, Part VI
YOU SAY THE MOST BEAUTIFUL THINGS WHEN YOU’RE DRUNK
this poem is an act of love for those words you slur into my hair from the stool in Moriarty’s
your tongue thick with whiskey
your thick whiskey tongue saying in Johnny Cash baritone I am afraid that I love you
leaning across the space between us to touch my stomach
now ballooned as the soccer ball you spent your boyhood passing between your feet
to put your lips against my ear and say with whiskey thick tongue
I am afraid that I love you
as though loving me were viral
as though loving me were the flu and you weren’t eligible for vaccination
as though you had been waiting in line at the health department all day
as though all night you had been feeding your fever shots of Jameson
and I lean my face into your neck
thinking of the time a friend called me Man Poison.
I love watching your silhouette move
my silhouette now not the same as it was months ago
my abdomen so flat beneath your palm/ beneath your ribs
on a layer of couch cushions on the floor of a friend’s home
and this makes me think of Olson
to be in different states without a change
is not a possibility.
You say I want to make love to you and I laugh
before we met I called it fucking
and even the first time you kissed me I laughed
and I curl my hands into your hair and breathe deep/ you always smell like light.
You say some night
when again we have found ourselves in the same bed
after a game of shuffleboard at Art’s
you say it is your fault, when you slept here the other night
your scent stuck to the bedding and I couldn’t
sleep smelling you all through my sheets
the moonflower, arresting.
You say this will be a scary twenty years for you and me and our daughter
you say I will lead a revolution, you say
I want you to sleep here tonight you say
would you like me to stay with you tonight
you say I just want her to be happy
you say I want to love you but I am afraid
This is not a love poem
but this is your poem, Jeremy
because I do love you, and I will use your name, Jeremy, Jeremy John Wittrock
because I love you correcting my technique throwing darts, my grammar,
saying use your wrist and for whom
I love you arguing with me about poetry, art, my poetics,
the impossibility of writing a good political poem,
finally calling me an elitist
I love you scrambling cheddar cheese into the eggs when I am frying potatoes
on Sunday afternoon even
though again you have kept me in bed so long
that we have missed the Lions game
I love you saying You can’t just call Tom Brady a terrible quarterback,
you have to have reasons
I love you quoting
You are a good woman,
but then again, you may just be the anti-Christ
I love you squeezing my toes in the doctor’s office during the ultrasound
when the technician announces the gender of our child
I love you rubbing my shoulders when I am sitting in a wheelchair
on the first floor of
in
and I am so cold from the rain
you give me your sweater
which is even now too large for me
I love you falling asleep with your whole body wrapped around mine,
as though you really were hugging a
tree, you who only now, in November,
are beginning to wear shoes.
and I was reading you this poem over the phone
you who are so often gone to some other state
you were fuzzy, too
you said you will leave me
you will leave our daughter
you will go and you will go and you will never stop going
there was a page missing
and it was the most important page
it was the page where I told you I loved you
and it had something to do with Jack Spicer
but I cannot remember what.
I am saying your whole name,
Jeremy John Wittrock/ I will not protect you any longer:
I am sitting in Stober’s while you are in
I have played I’ve Been Loving You Too Long eight times in a row
and I’m looking for more dollar bills
I am singing along
I am forgetting the words until seven months from now
when our daughter is asleep and I hear it again
to stop now.
3 comments:
i'm sitting in a cybercafe in calcutta trying to wipe away tears as discreetly as possible (in this country of a billion people).
-TKP
i'm sitting in my grey cubicle (which i've just cleaned every last personal thing out of, the last time, thinking, do i need this?), wiping away tears, and i think every inch of my skin is crawling with an overwhelming feeling for my oldest friend.
my hair is standing on end along my arms. i am overwelmed with a lack of words and a sudden need to purge myself through tears. you do this to me angela, you do. this is by far the most beautiful thing i have read in a long time.
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