Book o’ Verse

She slept in the bed
while he slept on the couch
so he could hear their sick daughter
and her three-day-old cough.
And in the morning
while she moved around the kitchen
and the kids watched too-loud TV
and coughed a little more,
he crept back into the bed,
curled up in the body warmth
she’d left behind
and they slept together
separated
only by time.

Just because you turn
slowly slowly
to check her out
slowly
as she walks past
doesn’t mean
that she don’t notice.

“Snow!” he shouted
tossing clouds of
thin, white sand at the beach
making snowmen
out of sand
with their heads
lying down
and their arms are wet planks
and their toes knotted kelp
and they never melt
until the sun explodes.

I must be someone very different to him
than I am to me.

Maybe I'm some fast-talking jack-ass
some know-it all jerkweed
some high-maintenance poindexter.

If he saw me in a bar
he would hate me in that bar.

I hope god doesn't see me through his eyes.

You could find us
by the smell of cheap wine
in open-air plastic cups.

See, we'd walked into this sunny summer party
unguarded booze
them all in college
us two in high school.
Strolling the lawn with our big red cups
held chest-high
both hands.

We were alert and amazed.
Thick-haired and thin-faced.

Bobbing along
like tipsy rowboats.

Sipping small sips.

Invisible.
But not odorless.

My son wants
bacon made out of coffee
for me and
bacon made out of orange juice
for him.

Leave those pigs alone!

But keep the bacon coming.

A thing a day a written
thing a thought a memory
a day it's not
too much to
ask too much to
do.

In Florida,
the land of the dead for me.
All those memories of bouncing on
airboats through swamps, and
wandering around exotic bird parks,
and listening to King Crimson
on the wide lawn
under the wide sky
by the reflecting lagoon.

And sometimes driving, sometimes walking
over to my great aunts, and uncles, apartments
for bowl snacks and conversation.

There was that one time --
Meyer borrowed our walkman.
Suddenly
volume spun all the way up,
all the way up
he could hear again.
Oh my god such a smile.

All gone now, that gang.
There were two Irvings.

And all alligators gone.
All tennis courts gone.
All rec centers gone
with miles of immaculate green felt pool tables.

Key West too.

And Florida is for me.
The land of the dead for me.

I want to build a house
with Richard Brautigan
up on the third floor.

Looking out a large window
at open land
hands on the windowsill.

Wearing that old hat
that old vest
those old glasses.

He looks good.

Do you know how many
stars up there  --
how many of those
nighttime naked-eye stars-that-you-can-see
are part of our local little galaxy?

Not off in the broader universe
representing some distant cluster.

Just local twinkle.
Milky Way shine.

Do you know?
Do you?
Do you?

How about all of them?

Motherfucker.