FRIDAY

You haven’t called

since Friday,

when I read Keith Waldrop's translation

of Les Fleurs du Mal

on the steps beneath 

that bronze statue in

in Columbus Circle

the one by the pretzel stand

that looks like a man on a horse and

I can’t remember 

if he is your great great grandfather

or your great great great grandfather

or what he did 

to get up on that horse

in the first place.

And, as I write this, I stop

to smoke one of the Camels

in the sky-blue box marked

SMÔK BáS

that I got at an Irish drugstore

hours before I called you and 

told you I loved you 

so meanly. And there is an accented voice

on the hotel radio.

“We’re drowning here,” it said,

and I agreed,

although it turned out

she meant only that “There is increased liquidity

in the Irish property market

following UK separation and Brexit.”

I’d point out that there is increased

uncertainty and liquidity in the

oceans and the atmosphere and the heart too

if I were the kind of jerk

who used phrases like 

“the heart” 

to mean anything other 

than vessels and blood,

the nervous thing

that tightens when you drive

too fast over a hill. And

is it common knowledge

that Bono is Irish or that the islands

are still under partial colonial rule

or are they not

and is that just a thing people say. 

Like Gesundheit 

or grace before dinner. I'm sorry

the internet was too bad for us to speak 

on the phone but maybe

there was some sort of dial-up wisdom in it.

The Cistercian monks took a vow of silence,

the Benedictines 

stripped even their prayers of words.

It’s been tried with poems too but insofar

as your green toothbrush is still

in the cup beside my sink, it seems fitting

to set up shop in "almost" 

and "not quite" and "that’s not 

what I meant." Maybe I will start getting

back into "I think you’re great" and

"let's do this again sometime." 

I draw the line at the heart, though,

with its liquidity.

The morning after the night after

we ignored our friends

and drank tequila at Bossa Nova

we called a cab and sat

in your apartment

watching the prayer flags

wave. I told you I thought the wind

carried the prayers

inscribed on the flags

to the gods, but Wikipedia

informs me now that 

the Tibetans believe the prayers and mantras will be blown by the wind to

spread good will and compassion into all pervading space. 

So I was wrong, again,

about the gods. Wherever

you are, I hope you’re drinking a

blue gatorade (the dark blue

not the light blue) and I hope you

stand still now and then

and let the rain

hit your face on purpose and

drip into your eyes

for me & the time(s) I left the city and

clouds massed and threatened to drop

a storm on our heads

but didn’t.

And just so you know 

I never learned how to play a proper F-chord

or any US history so

every song I write is in G and

the bronze men in parks 

are all your grandfathers

however many times removed.