because your hand
into fist fits so casually
in Levi’s pockets,
you look like a lover i never had,
a lover i long for in the sickly green fadeout
black and white blues,
you were “indulgent and huge”
tall thick and manly,
American
full-blooded red white and blue,
exulting the railroads, negroes, migrant workers, junkies,
homosexuals,
handsome girls and pretty boys,
and The Fabulous Beats
i daydream we celebrate birthdays together
smoke mexican grass from your leather pouch
drink wine, eat hash,
wail to Charlie Parker on the phonograph
and dance barefoot together on dirty wooden floors
i dream i feel my first new york rain
as we walk to the diner together,
like dirty diamonds on our eyelids and lips,
and in the diner we hold hands and
flirt with the waitresses for more cups of
coffee
i hear your voice, Jack
reading my poems aloud
casual, punctuated and musical,
taking drags off cigarettes and telling me,
“it’s awlright, doll”
and taking my pen you mark out all the
corrections and read and reread again
because you were a writer,
i feel your days of solitude in my head
where you hung like that clothesline
up above Big Sur
and tried to fill the whole that was
inescapable . . .
but i know . . .
that the booze stays bitter
and the cigs never satisfy . . .
and the grass cannot sail us away . . .
i think . . . and i think i want to hang with you in
Big Sur . . .
i want to avoid the outcomes of us
i want to avoid your demise
and someday! mine . . .
and i hope that mine
will not be so alone
like yours, jack . . .
because you were a writer
i forgot your birthday again this year
as i fucked my husband on the living room floor
in the Sunday morning blues and greens
with bebop jazz crooning us back to sleep
but somehow . . .
i know you think
that’s
“awlright”