S'en Aller

You creep up on me,
late August,
creep into the corners
of the rooms I walk in
in cities no belonging to me.
You show up in flashes:
a young man's sweater,
a girl's eyes
in wine so sweet it is almost unbearable.
You pop my peripheral,
and I'm dreaming of this
in the house of my lover,
in a house made of you.

Three years is a dream decieved;
you're horrid and I only miss you
when you appear suddenly and go just as soon.
I don't miss you at night anymore,
and I don't wake up startled
from a 'mareish kiss.
I don't dream of Iran,
or Muslim weddings.

But you creep up on me,
in late August,
every year,
with physical reminders as if God is saying,
'don't forget this.
don't forget him.'
as if I could when your memory
is still the ink of a thousand pens
and the paint on my brush in winter.

A thousand pieces are still missing
but my heart has stopped tearing
when you pop my peripheral
in blue.

4751

4.751 is a long number,
it is many days of laughter
and more days of tears.

It is an achievement,
sometimes celebrated by grandeur---but
you don't just run out and marry
your friends

It is a number stumbled on in childhood--
pre-adolescent, bag lunch
in the library or behind the school

It is a number clung to as umbrellas,
the storm of hormones and
girlfriends and
pomegranates
in regroup some years later.
It whispers, "everything will be all right."

In the night,
"everything will be all right."

I remember we said now,
we wished we could go
back and tell those girls
tell those girls
"you'll get laid"
"you'll be somebody, someday."

yeah, someday.

4,751 is a long number.
An unexpected frame of mind,
thirteen years a slice of time--
a big one.

It is an exhaustion number.
It's a bleeding number.
It's a shut-the-door-before-you-could-get-the-last-word number.
It's a selfish number, an adult number,
a no-holds-barred-fuck-you-I'm-tired number.

4.751 is four days past the storm and
five past the battle cry.

It was a silent war,
in respect to tongue-holding and
held back tears.

It's an Indian number in the land of cowboys bangbangbang.

Bang.

It's a hollow shout,
a burn out,
an end.

Domestic Violence

There's a good woman hiding somewhere
deep beneath this skin
Beneath the twilight and between the sharp edges,
beyond the little prickles and between the fight
there is a good woman here.

She stands with a backbone of fretboards and her hips
are made of f-holes.
Her hair of silver strings, softly swishing a lullaby,
coaxing a song from the still summer air.

There's a good woman in here,
she's the mother of your children,
the wife cooking dinner and fetching your slippers;
There's a good woman in here,
waiting for the crescendo of rifle fire and rock salt,
pacing the steps of the guillotine for freedom.