Eugene

I wrote about his death until he died.
Then I became my father. The shift
was gradual, the way a house might inch,
year by year, down an incline towards the street.
Bushes feel the nudge. Sidewalk cracks
could tell a tale, but who would listen?
Eventually the house will tumble

beam to basement. Unless contractors
come in to bolster floor joists, add girders.
When my mother visits for Christmas,
his name isn’t spoken. But in photographs,
I feel his eyes follow my movements.
My oldest son lumbers into the kitchen,
comes to lean against me. I pull away,
afraid of what is already happening.

A TRANSFER OF AFFECTION

Watching her movie look-alike,
I went to bed remembering
an Alabama ex-girlfriend.
I woke later, hard at the memory.
Younger than me,
she gave head, loved light jazz,
told me stories of her babies lost in divorce.
Engaged twice,
we drove ourselves to distraction
and transfers out of state.
She married in Birmingham, moved home
to monitor her mother’s health,
fell in with a fishing crowd.
She sends holiday emails.
I check photos on Facebook.
Her mother passed.

World Goes

Tomorrow, the world goes on,
they have no idea what has
transpired. It is as if everyone
lives in a vacuum.

Everyone continues to the road
to finding personal happiness
through grand spending. We must
be there at 7:30 AM, we must be
here by noon.
The memo is so important.

They have no idea what I have
lost in the process, and could barely
be bothered to slow down enough
to take note.

~

DeHart blogs here.

The Five Year Plan

I’m in the full church
For Cathy’s wedding.
Groom’s side, third row, aisle seat.

She walks past me
With the poise of a princess
Looking every inch the swimsuit model
She was until she became pregnant.
And whether that was an accident
Only one person will ever really know.

But I’m pretty sure how I’d place my bet.

Eyes that once spoke of love,
Lips that once loved
Now speak a silent warning
So clear my testicles contract:

“Don’t say anything.
Don’t mess up my day.
Why are you even here?”

The maid of honor
Told me last week
She said to Cathy,
“Do you love him?”
And Cathy replied, “I don’t know.
Sometimes maybe. It doesn’t really matter.”

Ten’ll get you twenty
I have her on the rebound
Within five years.
You just have to wait
For things to come around.

But Oh-Sweet-Jesus
Not for a shovel full of diamonds
Would I even try to survive
What they’re going to put each other through
In those five years.
It would make hell seem like
A week in Maui.

So: man up—
Do you want the bet or not?

~

Here’s where to find Andrew Hubbard

FRYING POTATOES AND ONIONS

I woke up and coughed my disease into the sink
And then I pissed and brushed my teeth.

It was when I started frying potatoes and onions,
Potatoes I cubed and an onion I sliced in this same room
Where I now sit and type,
That I began to think about you again,
For the third time that morning.
We were in my old apartment and it was after one A.M.
You were hungry and I made you a bacon and egg sandwich
The way my grandmother used to make one for me on Sunday morning
When I stayed at her house as a teenager.
You were so grateful, so filled with happiness
That I was doing something that is really so small
Compared to what I would be willing to do for you
And you kept saying how delicious it was,
Us warm and still vibrating from our hours
Going back and forth in bed.

Every object in the room brings a memory,
Every toss and turn in bed brings flames of fetid anger
Simmering in my stomach.
Now the rain has stopped and the fog is rolling in
But never enough that I cannot still see you
Delighting in every moment with me and steeling yourself
For when time would suspend our moments for another week
Or two.

It feels as if you are as dead as my grandmother
Or my mother
Instead of just gone from me and me alone
And when I think of you all that exists is mourning
Because it is still so new.
The potatoes, the onions, the spices
Clench themselves at the pit of my stomach
And all my eyes can see are things that are not here
And all my heart can feel
Is a phantom pain for the love we had
That you let suffer and die
All for the sake of the congruity
Of a false and moldy
Paradigm.

So I went back to bed,
Coughing again,
And wishing
For another night
Where you were still alive in my life,
Oblivious to your secrets, your artifice,
And the fraud of your extended silence

~

find John Tustin here

After War

Lingering weight
sneaks up
late at night,

lingering weight
lost years ago
awakening
in midnight rain–

tickling,
prickling
as it crawls
through time,
sprawling
across the sheets–

the evening ache
that fills my empty pant leg,
that fills his wife’s empty bed,

the evening ache
that fills hearts and heads,

pain wedded
to lost loves
and lost limbs
and lost lives.