Like It's a Funeral and Somebody's Died

You were pouring cups of freezer chicken fluid,
made a mustard marinade with blackberry compote.
Meat ends and bread heels, the blue cheese pork
tenderloin lady. "Do you think my grandmother's
dna is in here?" Yes, I said. It's in the stone.

Nothing scares me like the words Renal Failure.
I do not know what it means, entails, requires.
It gives me the qualms, and I'm set a'qualming.
Do you want to face the fact that you're dying,
that I'm dying? You'd want to keep pretending
for as long as you can. Up until the very end.

When a deer hears something, she stands. Ears up.
Do they know better or are they up to something?
Myself I don't feel connected to certain things.
To this day what I remember is my own agenda.
Still love means you shine a flashlight into the
dark corners. And this is why we find each other.
So that it's part of a whole something instead of
part of a whole nothing. Ah it's good to be crazy.
Health to the delinquency of progress. Which has
its hold around life's neck. Slovenly and haunted.

You saw the leaning tree and the trees in bloom
by the fire station. I climbed across the banister
to hang the wind chimes and we sat on the steps
in the sun. Birds checked out the box with straw,
got all excited and pecked the roof. Then some
big robins came, landed softly, and flapped back
over the hedge. Soon they had changed their tune.


2011