Come on Now

for A.

My darling, Getup

drug, wash.

You are a can of ashed ends.

A sleet-stained parking ticket

marooned on the cold floor.

But I have a mess of asters

and it’s time we took a walk.

Your black shoes, these black

domed streets; pleated air

ours and falling. We can sing

Desperado counterpoint-point, walk south

to the Sangre de Cristos.

We’ll make it by Thursday if we go now.

There’s a joint in the valley

churning horchata,

steaming tamales.

Let’s eat them piping.

Let’s sit in the lot

of the Salvadoran grocery,

slurp and be

hot-mouthed, greasy

and glad.

*

My darling, I hear it too.

A conspiracy

of correspondences.

We cannot blink

our ears. What can we do?

At the fringe

of the solar system

there’s the termination shock.

Around the corner

your sister swallows fistfulls

of icicles. She’s planted

in the hills in snow.

Some still walk those hills,

sowing clover.

*

My darling,

Will you cut the cathode ray?

Let me bathe you,

brush you, smooth you, dress you.

I’ll smooth you in a plain white front.

Make a boutonniere

out of 7-11 roses, pin it on

so everyone may know, he was once

a rhumba, bright mid-field prancer.

My darling, What if

your finger slips, and you shoot

the dresser instead?

What if you walk out

into the streets

empty as the coin purse

of a righteous woman,

empty as an oboe

after Peter sees the Wolf,

and a movie house

is having a Three Stooges

revival. And in the popcorn-

dark you get saved, split,

laughing even out of your eyes,

while you watch

a fat man fall?

*

“Man falls, slips on a banana,

breaks his leg,

that’s a tragedy.

Man falls, slips on a banana,

dies, that’s a comedy.”

Darling, Comedy just means

happy ending, any old terror

can swarm the space between

the first gasp and the flung sod.

*

We’ll get to the end

at the end.

Let’s walk now.

See the tableaus

in the houses we pass?

See how they are playing

Heart and Soul, making meatloaf

and making love?

See how breastless mothers

and uncles with numbers tattooed

beneath their liver spots and Band-Aids

come to the table,

say please when requesting the salt?

Let’s watch them.

Then let’s climb

those pylons and drink horchata

out of big straws and big, bad

styrofoam cups. Let’s lick

our wrists and fingers.

Then let’s look up.

There’s a ravisher there.

See the cirrus-streaks

across his brow? See the stars

at his buckle and the stars at his knees?

The firmament’s a barroom floor.

The waltzer’s backs

arc, they slide under,

give over and go.