Yes, success. So much, what to do with it.
Flaunt it, give it a flavor, become it or drown.
Dennis Hopper died. Why am I so affected by it? Why can't I stop
thinking about him? A man of not so dubious distinction in an
era of self sacrifice, a great actor. While thousands of innocents may or may not live in the Helmand Province, Mexico, the Gulf, Haiti, the Congo, Korea, Palestine or right here in these so-called United States. The list too long on account of, because of the dime.

Mother, where are you?

This time, I didn’t get lost in the department store.

This time, I’m not wondering when you will get home from work.

This time, I’m not eating fried chicken from Wishbone up the street

or missing my brothers and sisters who moved out.

This time, I’m not waiting for daddy because he is long gone.

This time, I am alone and it feels like an eternity.

I walk in the valley of the shadow of life
and when I trespass death I look back,
look beyond and wonder how I got here
so young, unexpectedly, without prompting
from the other side. Late at night I hear them
calling, not my name, never giving instructions,
nothing specific like that, just the sound of their voices
which echo when I turn my head, all together now
in harmonic convergence
as if all those I have lost and all those I am
about to lose have come together from this day forth
until death do us come together.

move through space like atoms untamed,
vibrating, bouncing up and down
without any particular direction at all
and no domain to call their own.
a vortex, a brainwave, a context,
a cyclone of would be, could be, what if,
and then
and yet we are contained within.
safe, remarkably even, almost stable
and content for that split second before
we explode.

So I wasn’t gracious.

Who gives a fuck?

I’m tired. Cake after dinner?

Who do you think I am, Betty Crocker?

Get a handle on things. I’m burnt. I’m sad.

You’re worse. I know. But there’s no room for normal.

Move aside. Yeah. Seems pushy. Is pushy. Is frustrated. Fed up.

Is tired. So tired. Is me, that so very small part of me that doesn’t want to give up.

Incredulous, we walk this path of darkness
remembering that call at 1:40 a.m., so delirious
from the news we granted ourselves another hour
of rest, a sleep so layered, opaque without dreams,
interrupted starkly by the shock of death.

The other nights left us speechless, floundering
around for solutions, someone to bathe you, clean the place,
prepare a meal, give you strength when you were so weak,
weave a good and convincing tale to take the path of least
resistance. 

We never had a chance to make the cholent or pancakes,
never got the wheelchair to break the isolation,
never found a way to bring you peace,
never saw the look on your face when you arrived at Maimonides.

That 2:30 ring tone, the cell phone upside down, when we kept saying, hello, hello, hello… When turned right side up, it was no, no, no, this can’t be… You were eating yogurt for godsakes, waiting to be moved to a room upstairs.

Now our eyes are transfixed on your wooden urn, our hearts distended,
our minds whirring mechanistically trying to put it all together, trying to make some sense of it.  Oh dear father, why did you have to leave just when we were getting started? Just when our love was so big we couldn’t contain it.

Not to worry, mother is here to take our minds off of you, to love in a new and different way, to show us an unfamiliar world through gesture, comment, movement, an empty pill box at 11 a.m. Sometimes she isn’t home when we get there, sometimes she is but forgets we are coming and sometimes she is pacing the hall waiting for us after we have left. We just take her hand and draw her close, put our arms around her, let her know that sometimes memory is there to forget. Sometimes it is best not to remember.     

 

 

                                  

i've been thinking about you. how can i not?
think, think, think, always in the middle of the night when sleep is so 
hard to come by. i've been seeing the past as recent history, the one
i would like to forget, the one that is so familiar.
some day i will remember to forget.

The hand, maybe a little bit  too close

The plastic bag inside the plastic bag just right.

I love you, Mom and do you know Dad just died?

No, I don’t think you’re stupid. I don’t think if I can help it. I don’t think if I’m allowed not to think at this moment just now.

Your hand feels warm, feels right. Don’t say you don’t hold hands with girls. Not now.

Don’t say it, please?

In the wake nothing settles, nothing's lost
but there is that nothingness we have come to know.
So opaque, so white, so familiar and familial, liar for
the sake of it. You liar. My mother, my father, myself.
You liar, why can't the truth be enough?
Please don't lie and please don't tell the truth.
Whatever you do, please me, why dont you?

made of steel, worked in stone
revolutionary for the sake of it.
we move through that universal space called family
with or without you.
but in the dark of night
there is no escape
from the love, the angst, the grief,
the release our family trait,
our down fall.
we are one, one for all,
and none of that at all.
we are, with or without,
always have been
and now without you,
the you of us, the us that we always knew,
we continue to evolve as you would hope we would.
farewell mother,
protector, provider, lover of all things,
animal, human and otherwise.
farewell.
we have not even begun
to say goodbye so let this be our
first time on this day, your 90th birthday.