Two Poems

Nation

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Walking down the street feels clogged with embarrassed millionaires. Holes in the shirts, holes in the soles in various silver plated denominations. Assured of arrivals, shipping magnate inventories, most favored nations. Melancholy picture settings set afloat in obsolete instruction manuals, sliced delicatessen. Flash forward to routine risk-taking, swayed less by the possibility of adventure than the adventure of possibility. Asked to walk a mile in my shoes, the response is unequivocal – foot power is out of favor in this modality.

Ten

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I.

If he had been born fifteen years later, would the act itself or the aftermath go viral, splashed on youtube? What muffled sounds would we hear before the click, and would we hear the click or only imagine it, our minds working ceaselessly to provide the details until it doesn’t matter whether they were ever there at all?

II.

In Reservoir Dogs, Tarantino never shows us the ear being removed, but millions swear they saw it, the cut and spurt like a fountain of quarters being pulled to infinity by a funny uncle.

III.

Fifteen years later, fifteen artists attempt to recreate the splatter pattern from cultural memory using various substances for a gallery show that lasted one night only in an Oklahoman dream. The least thought-provoking substance was semen. The most daring, pressed flowers.

IV.

The music never seems as special as the moment that it stops.

V.

If he had been born fifteen years later, teens would have uploaded thousands of copycat videos, twitter tagged cobaining. Some are entirely mimed, toes toggling triggers of air. Some utilize props, elaborately staged or everyday objected. Some make use of the real thing, loaded or un, the former a reminder that blood is not truly red.

VI.

Or nothing and everything would be changed. None of the details differ – the gun, the greenhouse, the chosen ending. Only the scale would shift – the outside world would ignore the loss, never hear the name. He would become just one of many sad young men, only celebrated statistically.

VII.

Fifteen years later, I still remember it as breaking news on MTV. Closing my bedroom door and crying, a performance looking for a camera, as the vultures circled in the west and reality bloomed outside my window. The smell of chlorine and basketball leather. The texture of ink in SPIN magazine. The waft of going nowhere.

VIII.

Somehow the image appearing on my eyelids is black and white, him in a dress. I feel like I saw the video and thought, how cool is that? How fucking cool is that? But I cannot be sure of the authenticity any longer, of the memory, or the performance. I remain curious about the color of the dress, about its provenance, its calculation, its size, the texture of its fabric on skin.

IX.

Fifteen years later the music seeps through everywhere and nowhere. Guitar heroes and cold cases shimmer in the atmosphere. His forfeited take is debated, the bloated fact of argument itself a perversion.

X.

Somewhere there is a field with a lingering strawberry sky, dead poppies underfoot. Somewhere there is a dour boy stoned at a high school football game in the drizzling rain. Somewhere there is meaning within the illusion that transcends illusion, gives pause. Somewhere the cold damp is providing warmth – the comfort of being sad.

XI.

Fifteen years later, I still cannot bring myself to look at the autopsy photos.