After the seizure receded
out of the boy, it wasn’t strange
to be so calm. He told us he knew
when one was coming, could taste sulfur
and see a wedding veil floating
through the periphery of the crowd.
But then, he lacked any recollection
of the actual event. He said that the nervous system
couldn’t force that much agony into the brain,
into memory, without causing severe trauma,
and it’s true what he meant,
that without memory pain could not exist.
I think of the liver, heavy and sluggish
like a thunderhead in the abdomen, an organ
that processes exterior darkness into darkness
the body can use. The liver is evidence of a sad order
to this universe, but a guardrail
won’t keep the overgrown bushes from scratching
my Honda any more than my presence
beside my sweetheart prevents the silent
derelict old man sitting alone in the Dunkin’
from looking her up and down and imagining.
We’ve done something only criminals
would approve of, but I wield her hand
like a battle flag in my own, and our porch-joy
and window-love are sewn ruthless
with simple desperation. Sunday morning,
9 AM, and on the lake outside
two geese are forming a narrow flock.
How funny, the difference between whole
and hole, the easy motion of reaching up to a shelf
to retrieve a jar of something thick
and sweet. Did you see the shadows
cast by the moonlight last night? We spooned it
into our mouths along with the ice cream
filling our champagne flutes, until the moon abandoned us
like everybody’s mother. After I die, someone alive
will wash my body and I will be powerless
to stop them. But when you read this,
when you are reading this, I will be only a wire away.