One More Thing

I sort of loved these kids in the way

they were my son and also some other people

who were not, in fact, my flesh and blood

but don’t get distracted by facts

did you in fact know we were living in a post-

factual word? he asked, slamming the door

 

I was trying to say something

I was trying to say that you

meaning me

can love someone in a glancing off the cuff

casual

kind of way that involves nothing physical

but a kind of emotional proximity

that means for a moment we were in the same

approximate approximation

for example one kid was telling us about a man

who started fire with his hands

 

I’m skeptical

 

but I believe  a person addicted to opiods

can be cured with marijuana

 

who’s to say what is true

 

on the other hand, I walk about the world

in just my skin, as if anything can protect me

 

from feeling this joy

despair

wonder

 

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The Sisterwives in the Hurricane Walmart

are looking for dinner

perhaps some macaroni and cheese perhaps

some potatoes or beef, maybe salad

 

the boy pushing the cart

might be their brother or

perhaps a son

 

in aisle 5 they can find plush pink towels

or further in light blue t-shirts or swimsuits

or chilled water or cold, sweet ice cream

in flavors like salted caramel or chocolate

 

my son fears their colonial dresses

and the air of a cult that shushes

as the group of them wander by

he says if you went to Colorado City

you might never come home

 

watching them, I believe Walmart

might be a version of heaven

if only briefly

providing solace in texture

and form, in temperature,

in the way everything

you see is brightly lit

and available for a price

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Synchronicity: 1983

that was the summer you were gone

O My God

now I think of your

Mother

pixilated in the newspaper, grainy

how she must have sobbed

your name

we heard the song

Every Breath You Take

as we drove the barren streets

looking for the one who

must have done this

But what? we didn’t know

until they found a body, no

longer you, one thin blue ribbon still

Wrapped Around Your Finger

(all italics are titles from Police’s Synchronicity) 

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