God’s Sour Breath Passes Through Me Each Morning
Armed with an automatic rifle,
I dropped acid one night in a foxhole.
I pulled the trigger; a short burst and then it jammed.
I walked on the moon, but notoriety didn’t follow.
Got more attention when I proved you’re never too old
to wear Batman pajamas in a supermarket.
I proved this on three occasions, only one involved police.
So many things have been lost.
The forest of television antennas
on apartment buildings in Brooklyn.
The chocolate donuts I stopped for
each morning on my way to work.
My left lung, Doctor Gorlick tells me, is paralyzed.
I’m trying to remember who sang Cry Me a River,
trying to remember what my favorite song was
in high school, or even last year. If one lung dies
does the other mourn like a surviving twin?
There’s nothing like the sophomoric answers you have when drunk.
I bet you, in heaven everyone sits around and says things
like “death is a love story” or “life was a waste of time”
or “holy moly I miss sex” or “holy moly I don’t miss sex.”
I’m a story that I tell myself when no one is around.
Everything I’ve ever loved is on the far side of the horizon
in a box under a bed covered with snow.
And Broken Bones
We made a deal, the sweater's hole, the heel that's lost,
the carousel inside the microwave that simply stops …
She would burn a pair of shoes for every book
I tore off its cover … and then the other things happened.
We occasionally took turns biting each other.
She asked how far I was willing to go with this.
We’re all cartographers trying not to regret
the maps we’ve made, lifeguards on a beach
wondering if we would rescue ourselves —
at least, that’s what I wondered.
Live long enough … it happens to everyone.
It aches to want, not the cheap want that sweats
from desire … the want that’s worn.
The courage it takes to be in love with the world.
We flipped a coin, crossed our fingers, hoped for the best …
She liked to say I was her favorite souvenir and often thought of me
standing inside a snow globe …wearing a long coat,
leaning on a shovel, about to begin work.
Death Watch
All afternoon, my mother sat in her chair
Afraid to close her eyes, afraid
They would never open, Death
Is much more precise than life.
Three, four, six hours … she waited
For me to come home to tell me and show
How wide and quickly she could open them
If they even just started to close …
Pulling her foot from the river,
Only a toe feeling the coldness.
Each minute embalms me just that much more.
I told her it’s safe to close her eyes, to nap,
… I would wake her for dinner. Later that night
The sky crashed around me, a harrowing performance
That could be confused for music.
In the morning I drank whatever wine remained
And called it breakfast.
We all know how this ends. It doesn’t matter
How often I disgust myself. I don’t even share these stories
In my most intimate speeches. We take turns dying.
Goddamn it, I think to myself, goddamn it.
The heart is my favorite month of the year.
My mother tells me, “just because I hallucinate doesn’t mean I’m crazy.”
One day I’ll be a gravestone instead of a man.
Rick Bursky teaches poetry for UCLA Extension’s Writer’s Program, and is an adjunct at USC in the Annenberg School. His most recent book, Let’s Become a Ghost Story, is out from BOA Edition. Instagram @rickbursky & rickbursky.com
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