NOTES AFTER A BLACKOUT

For days -- then weeks -- after the fall,

when those sudden waves of dizziness would

arise with even the smallest of movements,

and turning over in bed meant pulling

the whole lopsided world up beside me

as well, I found myself practicing gassho after

a long and lazy absence -- first in my

mind's eye, then placing my palms together

just above heart level, centering, centering,

denying the duality of left and right,

up and down, false gravity pulling me

in both directions at once. It surprised me,

this seemingly inadvertent reverence, as if I had

been granted a small offering of grace,

the unassuming dignity of walking slowly,

cautiously from one room to the next.

I felt a measure of kindness to the bruised and

swollen face gazing back from the medicine

cabinet mirror -- face that here needed neither

explanation nor apology -- the same face that

had been waiting there for all this time.

TAKING PHOTOGRAPHS AT FUNERALS

 

It was, my cousin reminds me, once quite common for one family member or another to snap a photograph of their loved one in final repose, a keepsake to be placed among the golden locks of hair, the bronzed baby shoes, and that tiny bracelet that somehow fit on your grandmother's wrist. They would not have minded, we would like to imagine, going as they were before the Maker in their Sunday finest, faces freshly painted and powdered, sunken cheeks glowing rosy once again. In childhood, those images never failed to startle, while thumbing the thick pages of the family album -- the scene shifting suddenly from kids laughing through the candlelit glow of birthday cake, or your mother holding your sister next to a dog whose name no one can recall, to a waxen, expressionless face peering above a casket's satin pillows, its exterior dark and final. It seemed ghoulish, and perhaps selfish, the need for that one final image of one who could neither smile nor offer consent. But perhaps such clinging is not unreasonable. Perhaps I am no different, telling this to you, conjuring with words the unreliable visages of the past, endlessly attempting to name and reclaim a part of the world that has long since departed.

CANDY CIGARETTES

 

We bought them with the nickels

and pennies of our weekly allowance

at the Little General corner store,

tucked them in our small paper sacks

along with the crystal blue and amber jewels

of hard candy, the Tootsie Rolls,

Red Hots, and aptly named Jawbreakers.

We practiced looking tough, or just thoughtful,

practiced those mannered turns and gestures

of the wrist, flicking imaginary ashes

upon the ground, or into our open palms,

white sticks of sugar dangling from

the corners of our mouths as we spoke,

blew imaginary smoke rings toward

the blue shimmering sky, tapping one end

of the pack against the soft mounds

below our thumbs, the way we had seen

the grownups do. We learned to squint like

the stars of Westerns and war movies,

rolled the crinkling packs into the shoulders

of our thin cotton tees, before setting off

on Big Wheels and bikes, the sand and

broken glass of housing project sidewalks

crunching beneath our wheels, toward a future

already being written for us, up there

amongst the shifting clouds.

SIMPLETON

 

Upon further reflection, I think that I should like

nothing more than to become what was once known

as a simpleton -- that shapeless, shiftless,

unassuming character residing in the corner house

handed down by one kind family member

or another, concerned, naturally, for his wellbeing --

yard wildly overgrown, weeds and wildflowers

interchangeable, shuffling out to the mailbox

in bathrobe and stocking cap, humming something

nondescript and long since out of fashion,

speaking to the neighborhood cats

as old friends and familiars. I would endure

the unintentionally cruel laughter of children,

and the exasperated sighs of adults with

the patience normally reserved for fools and saints.

Never again would I be burdened by others

asking my opinion or insight on any given thing.

I would eat my simple meals and enjoy my

simple pleasures, all based around the simplest

routine; and should I dare to call you friend

or ask your honest advice, you would understand

it to be meant with no ulterior motive

or guile. I would be too simple to explain

my thoughts beyond a nod or shrug of affirmation.

But you, by far the wiser, would have

learned to listen well.

NARRATOR

 

I have always questioned

everything, but now,

with the signature of so

many years becoming

indecipherable, I question

most the one asking

the questions.

LAST PHOTOGRAPH WITH MY SISTER

 

I don't know why this photo, the last that

we took together, is muted in grays and sepias,

as if the West Coast sunlight was somehow

being filtered through an antique lampshade,

or a scrap of newsprint held up to window glass.

You look so small on the bench beside me,

bony shoulders folded into themselves,

your kind face hovering somewhere between

a smile and a vague sense of surprise.

Your matchstick legs could barely hold you,

not for long, your balance swimming

in and out like some uncertain dance partner,

seemingly at random, Yet you insisted on

walking me through Chinatown, buying

a handknit sweater and chocolates for your niece,

those red paper lanterns suspended across

every street, as if the streets themselves,

narrow and directionless, were merely

an afterthought; you insisted on seeing the

enormous Christmas tree lighting up the wharf,

sea lions barking their hunger, as always,

for all to hear, each blubbery mass and voice

calling out indecipherable from the next.

We are waiting, in this moment, for one last

taxi to the airport, as ordinary as that.

But the sun was much warmer than it looks,

the palm trees behind us alive and swaying gently,

while the snow back home, three feet of it,

was a few short hours away. I can't blame you

for not missing it, not missing it at all.

SITTING WITH MY SISTER

 

When I received the news today of your

passing -- a fact somehow known

before I touched the phone to listen --

I wanted only to keep it to myself,

to not speak to anyone during those

long, slow minutes, their silence

demanding only more silence,

their time more time. I wanted to hold

you there, secretly, perhaps selfishly,

between that cave of heart and ribcage,

to hold you suspended like a single breath,

or a seed that I was neither able to

swallow nor spit out. I wanted

to hold that moment, hovering like

a thought unformed, not simply

for the sake of sparing others but to sit

with you one last time, as we had

near the end in your tiny apartment,

too quiet for you, and those drugstore

Christmas lights blinking on and off

against the smoky California sun.

I wanted merely to sit with you once more,

just us, before picking up the phone,

handing you back to the world of

the living, the realm you had so recently

left behind, weightless and wordless

now, suddenly beyond the endless

aches and ailments of matter, your absence

only beginning to make itself known.