day EIGHTY TWO

After Midnight Melancholia XII

 

I lose books in bars.

I leave them like tips,

butterflied by an empty

pint and a bundle of bills.

If a stranger picks it up,

begins to read where I left off,

does that make us brothers?

Lovers?

Do we complete

one another’s thoughts?

 

I never exactly remember

where or when a story ends.

It’s a big empty,

an open mouth

like the Outback,

or the American West in movies,

or when you realize that even stars age.

Besides, you can’t count

on the weight of last lines.

I mean, when was the last time

you ever marveled a frame.

 

Things disappear,

or rather move toward their end,

or rather toward disorder,

but any Buddhist or physicist can  tell you that.

It’s all there, spinning another turn.

 

I’ve lost my driver’s license,

my credit cards,

and every morning my keys.

Once, I lost the heel of my boot.

I teetered to the right all the way home,

and fell into a bush a block

before I reached my door.

I didn’t notice until the next day.

Holding the flat sole in my hand,

I turned it around and around

unable to understand.

I thought the world had just gone crooked.

 

I’ve been losing a long time,

all the time,

every time,

moment to moment,

flaking off like old skin,

tossed like pennies to the street.

I’ve lost my train of thought,

my Saint Christopher,

my last dime,

my wonder,

my word my wonder,

my will to speak

and a thousand thousand lonely

socks to the void of various dryers,

but apparently so has everyone else.

 

I’m not sure when I lost my self,

maybe puberty,

or my first job,

or the last round,

maybe at the freshness of first breath,

but either way the bastard’s still humming

with the moths around the bulb.

 

Sometimes the things I’ve lost come back.

The other night I ordered a shot

and the bartender said,

“I got your Bolaño,”

smiling another dollar into her tip.

I was whiskey enough to give her two,

every inch of her fingers

at the edge of every bill.

She left under the arm

of a guy with both his heels.

Who can blame her?

It’s an easier walk home.

I stayed around drinking,

losing quarters to the jukebox

and hours to the day.

 

I often lose my way,

find myself in unfamiliar neighborhoods,

knocking at strangers’ doors,

hoping someone will answer

and say, “Come inside.

We’ve been waiting.

We’ve been gathering

all the things that you’ve lost.”

 

--Larry Duncan

 

*poem originally appeared in Dance Macabre 106*