last new poem

UPPER PENINSULA EPHEMERA

a postcard for Boog, who grew up in the UP

 

 

I didn't want to be the one

to tell you, but the trees are burning, Boog.

There is fire everywhere.

 

We can't reach Munising

from Taquahmenon Falls

except by dirt road.

 

Even then

there is so much ash

my mouth tastes of old campfire.

 

We are in Shelter Bay.

It is only August 4^th.

The leaves are unclenching

 

their jaws from the branches.

By the time they reach the

ground they look like bleeding gums,

 

they are so red. And lovely.

An entire national forest burned

by one lightning strike.

 

Everything is more frightening than it ought to be:

 

the Mackinac Bridge

suspended by dental floss; meteor showers

so close and so bright it feels like Mosul;

 

a Vietnam vet named Ron Stokes

who is half-deaf and hermitic and

possibly your future self.

 

Worst of all, Boog, is not that he paints

in a Bob Ross-style, or that he drinks

mainly Busch Light; it is that he goes

 

entire calendar years without speaking

to anyone, as though his mouth

opens to a tunnel of fire.

 

This does not stop him from smoking.

 

But when I see you, you are already drunk,

beer cans rattling like empty shell casings

in your speech. The maple planks

 

of the table scorch. The folds of the paper

curl and brown, waltz away

from my fingers and yours.

 

Before I can tell you of the joys of US-2,

how safe we feel so close

to Lake Michigan, your face is red

 

and your hair rising to the ceiling

with electric charge.

 

I only wanted to warn you, Boog:

Mr. Stokes looks to be

what I can only describe as spent munitions.

 

Most of his teeth are rotten, the rest missing,

and you, old friend, have always had

such lovely teeth.