Just as before,
as always,
he still sleeps
nightless,
remembering
how she used
to massage
his hands
and feet on
wasted Sunday
afternoons.
Too hot to go out:
rubbingrubbingrubbingrubbingrubbing
all the toxins out
from the boiled
and charred
night skin.
Then there were
her toes that
did the work of
connecting
you both
to the unforgiving,
laughing earth
and its unpolished
streets.
He, lost,
imagined a world
where men
fought wars
over poverty...
At night
he stayed up
while she slept
so fast,
trying to understand
too much
then, worse,
put words to
his false conclusions
based on bad
reconnaissance;
there are two
red field notebooks
buried
in boxes down below
to prove these years of
futility did happen.
But there is nothing,
not one
phrase or word,
in them
about how
the ghosts
of that converted,
once glorious
mansion,
warned him
again and again
that this
was his biggest mistake
of all...
He never
quite listened,
just continued
to write
everything
but the details
down
as the days
and nights
passed into
the unwritten.
Los Angeles - 2/2/07
