The Book of Goodbyes Read online

  unprecedented. If I sleep with

  other finches, let us here reference

  the words of the Apostle Paul: “I hate

  what I do.” I don’t hate you.

  I don’t even not like you. I’ve gone

  over the branches and can’t find you.

  Today the gauchos arrived and they want

  me to ride on the brim of their sombreros

  to the ranch and maybe I will find me there

  a finch who reminds me of you and you

  will have returned to me.

  TWO

  WHY I NO LONGER SKYPE

  Skype is on your Mac on the table

  next to the Malbec and ashtray,

  next to the book that cost 120 pesos,

  b/c you had to have Ulysses

  in English. You’re in some town

  where your name doesn’t exist

  and they rename you, so you’re

  never sure who they’re talking to.

  The screen rings. It’s Big Logos.

  He downloaded the thing. First

  a garbled voice comes from

  the keys then, “Can you hear me?”

  By the power of gods in Estonia,

  makers of software, haters of fees,

  the voice says your name and he’s

  not anyone, though anyone from

  Terre Haute to Rome can Skype you,

  he’s someone you know or knew.

  Which tense to use? Then his face

  appears by the folders, the clock,

  the Firefox, his face on his body

  in his bed 8,000 miles away

  and he says, “Give me a hug.”

  You both grab hold of your machines.

  You show your eyeballs to each other,

  all impressed with yourselves,

  as if your eyeballs have not always

  been on your head. “Good to see you,”

  he says. “Can you look in my eyes?”

  You try but you’re always looking off.

  It’s sad but it feels good like you love

  reading Ulysses and you love being

  alone near the Martial Mountains.

  He plays a cover of Bruce Springsteen

  by Lucero, and what a rad band.

  This is the life. This is your friend,

  your friend from way back, though

  let’s be honest, he was more

  than that, and not to trouble you

  with facts, he’s still more than that.

  You’re so hot for technology.

  This is better than IM. You can’t

  get enough of his pixels and it must,

  please tell me, it must add up,

  all those hours spent listening

  to Lucero, who is okay but,

  let’s face it, not Springsteen,

  and all those hours spent watching

  Hulu together and now look at you,

  staring at your screen, which is

  not ringing, which will not ring.

  It has always been just a screen.

  You can’t blame it for that.

  PORTRAIT OF BIG LOGOS

  If you’re there, I will look at the door

  to the motel room and I will be in

  my violet dress because violet is one n

  away from violent like come in,

  how was your trip, and if you’re there,

  I will spend the first ten minutes

  ignoring you. I will play Philip Glass

  and I will play Busta Rhymes.

  It depends on what type of there

  you are and what you’re there for.

  I will read Berryman poems to you,

  only Berryman and “I’m hungry,”

  you will say and you will keep

  being hungry and there is no need

  for you to be there to know that.

  If you’re there, you will have stopped

  being you, because being there

  in a motel room with me is something

  you no longer do, not the you

  I know and not the you

  you know either and that’s

  the violence of the whole thing.

  ONCE I THOUGHT I WAS GOING TO DIE IN THE DESERT WITHOUT KNOWING WHO I WAS

  Joshua Tree, CA—A young professional, Jane Doe,

  was raped and murdered at the Cactus Motel

  off Twentynine Palms Highway Sunday morning.

  Officers responded to the call, made from Room H,

  Jane had tried the phone, found

  the landline dead, flipped her cell, dialed 9-1-1

  again and again, tried the front desk,

  wanted to call Big Logos, to whom

  she was a mistress, and knowing this was not

  her weekend in Verona, and knowing it was

  her duty to provide mischief not trouble,

  liveliness not near-death, and knowing exactly

  who would pick up the phone if she called him,

  and knowing the voice on the other end

  would say, “Yes? Who is it?” a question

  Jane decided was not hers to answer, decidedly

  none of her business, he would have to do it,

  and so far he was doing it daily, making

  arrangements in bars to take his dick out,

  for his and her enjoyment, under the table,

  until his dick became habit, and he said,

  you make my dick happen, which made her

  feel like a creator of dick, and she loved it,

  and she feared losing it, and made no demands

  that he leave his girlfriend, and was unmoved

  to tell her, he would have to do that,

  it ails me, he said, the ailment Jane attributed

  to a mid-life crisis, it was easier to think this

  than to ask what was really wrong with him,

  or what was really wrong with her,

  and so resigning him to his ailment in Verona,

  she called instead a friend, a distant,

  a friend who knew nothing, not the affair,

  not the trip to Joshua Tree, a man by the name

  of Clint who worked for Express Trucking,

  data entry, third shift, Jane knew he would be

  awake playing Guitar Hero, or masturbating

  to the Girls Gone Wild DVD she’d encouraged

  him to purchase, since when they last spoke,

  the girls char-charred in the background,

  on TV, and Clint loved them, which is when

  she made her recommendation to purchase,

  because what else did Clint have to live for?

  Clint could do nothing for her.

  What did she expect Clint to do for her

  in Room H, an auspicious letter, the voiceless

  glottal fricative, had has him his her hers,

  letter of breath, of bare sound, of hate humanity

  and hell. She began making bets with God:

  she would not encourage Clint to pornography,

  she would stop romancing Big Logos,

  she would go to church in the morning,

  she would find a saint after service,

  she would wear long dresses and call mom.

  She couldn’t call mom in a moment like this,

  to tell her a man, possibly dangerous,

  certainly deranged, was standing outside,

  breathing heavily, banging hard with his fist,

  and had no answer when she spoke to him.

  “Yes? Who is it?” she asked, expecting the owner,

  the proprietor, the landlord, the hotel manager,

  there’s been a fire, an earthquake, a problem

  with your credit card. Then remembering

  the man with dirty hands who all day walked

  back and forth beside her window, from his room

  beside hers to desert, from desert to his room

  beside
hers, she remembered thinking him

  attractive, disheveled, t-shirt, khaki shorts,

  she could pin him in a lineup, six two,

  she remembered thinking of fucking him,

  of what that would be, for he was a businessman

  at a Fortune 500 company, drove an Audi,

  wore sunglasses with a haircut, he had accounts

  manageable, he was en route to Los Angeles,

  on the red-eye, the kind of man who fucked

  stewardesses in supply closets before selling

  a pie chart to Tokyo, how far she got thinking,

  earlier in the eve, and now hoping desperately,

  scanning the room for defense, that it was not

  this man, but that it was the owner of the motel,

  and she expected some reply from the door,

  since otherwise Jane knew no one in Joshua Tree,

  had not been to any of the bars, clubs,

  nor karaoke joints that the 911 operator

  suggested she may have frequented, are you sure

  you didn’t go out anywhere meet anyone?

  and though she told the 911 operator:

  “I am positive I met no one tonight I am

  going to die please he is banging on the door”

  the operator didn’t believe her, kept insisting

  are you sure are you absolutely sure while she

  screamed “WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?”

  and thought of him passing her window,

  thought of him casing the desert, thought

  of how before, when before he was not

  a threat, she was going to say to his hands

  how dirty, he had been walking the desert,

  she could see him, digging out the desert,

  as he hassled the door knob, hurried past

  the window, he was at the back door now,

  she had people to tell she loved them,

  she had things left to say, and the operator, Miss

  what are you doing staying out there alone?

  SEMI SEMI DASH

  The last time I saw Big Logos he was walking

  to the Quantum Physics Store to buy magnets.

  He told me his intentions. He was wearing

  a jumpsuit with frayed cuffs. I thought the cuffs

  got that way from him rubbing them against

  his lips but he said they got that way

  with age. We had two more blocks to walk.

  “Once I do this, what are you going to do?”

  he asked. “I wish you wouldn’t do it,” I said.

  Big Logos bought the magnets and a crane

  delivered them to his house. After he built

  the 900-megahertz superconductor, I couldn’t go

  to his house anymore because I have all kinds

  of metal in my body. I think if you love someone,

  you shouldn’t do that, build something like that,

  on purpose, right in front of them.

  POEM FOR HIS EX

  So what’s up? Where are you these days?

  Last I heard you worked at a bakery.

  Last I read your poems were lower case

  with capital content. I used to like

  to read them in the dark. It’s weird

  you’re not his girl anymore.

  You were the picture in a snow globe

  on his desk that I’d go to, shaking,

  when he left the room. That room.

  Do you remember it? The Dr. Seuss

  sheets read: “This is not good.

  This is not right. My feet stick out

  of bed all night.” We tried not to talk

  about you. When we had to do it,

  I made him go to a dyke bar

  so everyone would be on my side.

  In my mind you were so good

  at everything, like walking.

  I asked him if you had two legs.

  What was I thinking? Of course

  you have two legs. I asked him,

  I guess, so that the possibility

  of me would exist. He said yes

  as if he was ashamed to admit it.

  Does it make you feel better

  to know he cheated with a handicapped

  girl? I wonder if you have

  any handicapped friends.

  I don’t know why I’m using that word.

  It demoralizes me. Or if you don’t.

  Or if you’ve seen somewhere,

  maybe in the bakery, a woman

  with a limp and felt sorry.

  Once in the dyke bar he said

  he was waiting for you to

  stand on your own two feet

  and it was hilarious to me,

  though it was a serious conversation,

  so I could not laugh.

  We never talk about you now.

  It’s not allowed. We have to act all

  that-never-happened.

  I always liked you and thought

  you were cool

  and sometimes I pretend

  you’re in the room

  and you forgive me and say

  you always knew.

  GOODBYES

  begin long before you hear them

  and gain speed and come out of

  the same place as other words.

  They should have their own

  place to come from, the elbow

  perhaps, since elbows look

  funny and never weep. Why

  are you proud of me? I said

  goodbye to you forty times.

  I see your point. That is

  an achievement unto itself.

  My mom wants me to write

  a goodbye poem. It should fit

  inside a card and use the phrase,

  “You are one powerful lady.”

  There is nothing powerful

  about me though you might

  think so from the way I spit.

  I don’t want to say goodbye

  to you anymore. I heard

  the first wave was an accident.

  It happened in the Cave

  of the Hands in Santa Cruz.

  They were drinking and someone

  killed a wild boar and someone

  said, “Hey look, I put my hand

  in it.” Saying goodbye is like that.

  You put your hand in it and then

  you take your hand back.

  FOR BIG LOGOS, IN HOPES HE WILL WRITE POEMS AGAIN

  Maybe it’s because you’re cut off

  from your roots, and you need to go

  to Spain, be with your forefathers,

  the Diego Logos, whose remains lie

  in the sea surrounding Majorca.

  There you’d feel more insula maior,

  less insula flatbrain. There you’d rest

  in a hammock, mid-afternoon, writing.

  Except such peace makes awful poetry.

  There would appear a beetle

  by the ill-begotten name of Hydraboo.

  He is angry, scaled, with pokey things

  like fingers if fingers were shiny blades

  of poison. He is evolved beyond

  our Horatian notion of beetles. He sees

  your left ear and it tenders him,

  calms him the fuck down. I can’t

  blame him for that. Your ear, lined

  as it is, like the marks he made by the sea,

  and it is soft, with a secret spot

  for getting into. Don’t you think

  he had a day of flat brain?

  You bet. But not this day, the day

  you swing in the hammock, composing

  a much too peaceful crown of sonnets

  or just a crown inside a sonnet

  or just a curtal sonnet about a king

  who lost his ending, an ending who lost

  her king, when suddenly beside you

  Hydraboo the Beetle wants in your ear.

  Wha
t will you do? You are a monist.

  Bisabuelo Logos was a monist.

  Indeed you are a monad. Sometimes

  this is what I do when I am especially

  missing you: I pretend you are hiding

  behind everyone in the world’s face

  and I have to say the code to reveal you.

  This is why I buy so much fruit

  from so many different vendors.

  I guess I’m on the island too.

  Do you mind? I wonder how I got here.

  I must’ve taken a whale.

  I say to the vendors, “You are a royal

  pumpkin. You are a five-dollar chicken.

  Are you not?” No, he is not, and he is not,

  and neither is he. On I walk, eating

  pomegranates and berries. As Diego

  Logos used to say, Esperanza mis niños,

  and as he spoke he saw Hydraboo,

  back when he was half-a-pint,

  half-a-toothpick, flat without brain,

  pinch without body, scuttle here,

  scuttle there. Diego watched him

  with your very own eyes before they

  were your eyes, when they were still

  Diego’s eyes watching Hydraboo,

  who was not yet boo, and not yet beetle,

  more like be, only an inkling, before

  poems happened, when all writing

  was wish and whizgig in sand.

  BE NOT FAR FROM ME

  He called her number, after many months,

  and reached a man named Pete. “This is Pete,”

  the man said. “Don’t nobody answer here

  but me.” So she had changed her number.

  It was almost like she wanted him to suffer.

  It was almost like having her new number

  would give him something that belonged

  to him anyway. During other hours of the day,

  he didn’t want her new number and would

  content himself without it, until he got drunk,