Camelot

Right out of a plane in Cleveland,
he found a crowd in the thousands
waiting to glimpse him. Three hours deep,
those high school kids and young couples, beside

themselves with happiness, had waited.
There was no microphone at all. The crowd
pinned him against the plane, pulled at his clothes,
and started to cheer. Still, Johnny began to smile

at the eager crowd. Quietly he touched
many hands. Johnny smiled and gave
encouragement. He touched many hands.
Those people had waited for hours to see their man.

Only those near him could hear, but Johnny
started to speak. That voice they knew gave
him speech, gave them hope–
I will need your help. But if you work hard,
we will win.

Johnny didn’t have to have any bylines
to get in the news. His words were our headlines.

Roberto

Today’s mail brought
your memorial announcement
from Miguel.

Hadn’t seen you
for a couple of months
since you returned
to junk, bottles
and crystal.

You called the night
before you died
I was out.
Left you a message.

Recent photo
on a cover
still a clothes horse,
your hair shoulder length,
as it was
three years ago,
we battled booze
with hands dripping
water from the sink,
talking in the thick
snowy TV light
about how life was better
without hangovers
and men

I hold in my hands
the image you liked;
handsome, scruffy,
ink on arms and
the small of your back

I picture Miguel
paying his respects
to your corpse
early that morning;
on the bathroom floor
splattered with blood,
falling after jacking up,
face against sink,
shattering nose
on your face.

Roberto, you were all face.

Dealer’s Table

boxes on folding chairs
unfolded around a folding table

a bowl of nachos
four mugs of beer
a pile of poker chips,
cards face down

i pick up one of the hands,
five crisp cards,
all of them picture cards
red birds light on their wings

in the dealer’s room,
four men play cards
drink, smoke, cough, grunt
i put twenty dollars on the table;
a squinting man looks at the money
he looks like the bank

a jovial man deals me a hand
five of a kind
picture cards
red birds on black wings
i bet heavily on this hand

the bank sits back in his chair
clicks his tongue
he’s sure i’m bluffing
maybe i am
i never had a flush of birds
he sees me, raises me

the fourth hand
a drunk man
flutters his cards
as if he has the jitters.

he sees the bank
i see the bank
i raise the bank
the bank folds

the drunk sees me, calls me
i show my hand of red birds
he has a pair of aces and a pair of threes
i reach for the pot, he stops me
the money slides into his lap
he beams around the table, says
No cigar, two pair beats five birds

black boxes on folding chairs
around a folding table
a game of red birds
folded and unfolded

No Exit

Stuck
in the checkout line
at Fairway
behind a geriatric
while the cashier
peels apart
a wad of bills
one
by
one

Westchester

To see Duncan, I travel north
away from my heart
to the one we’re building in a new place
out of nothing much.

Across the steel bridge
elevated roads lift cars above weeds,
unexpected trees and brick shores.

Harlem streets tick by,
rain sweeps the train windows,
slick streets, slicker river
the one that can flow both ways.

I can never lean again
without fear, I who doubt the solidity
of everything. I wait
for what’s next, and think I must
remember where love comes in.

Here the river fights itself
wave slaps wave, a battle
pulse of ocean versus
flood of river

Suddenly then, smooth
orderly waves march like soldiers
past concrete benches
not made for human flesh

Open sky soothes my aching eyes
past twenty kidnapped cars.

The doors won’t close, then they do
as we curve around to face west.

Back of the House

With wrinkled fingers
that smell of onions and soap,
Juanito eats cake by the mouthful
down in the kitchen’s sub-basement.

Salsa plays on the radio,
while laughter and the clink of glasses mix
with weed and cigarette smoke as the cooks
chop vegetables for tonight’s soup.

The realm of a dishwasher is a
dark, forgotten place as vegetable rinds
lie scattered on a greasy tile floor.
Juanito is always wet and hot,
and a little drunk on warm beer that
rests atop the sink,
as he looks at all the discarded food
and dreams of something with
butter and basil.

Forty-five minutes later, while
tasting the gumbo,
the sub-basement scatters as
somebody yells Immigration!

The head chef comes down the steps laughing,
and heads into the storage area for
a quick fix before the
next rush begins upstairs

Half drunk and redolent of
soapy onions and celery,
he picks at the seafood linguini that
rests on the shelf, next to
the flour and cornmeal
and thinks about the bar after work,
about the waitresses upstairs,
imagines fucking them in their
clean apartments without
a sinkful of dirty dishes,
their perfume and shampooed hair
and knows full well
they’d never shag him.

The bartender gets it all,
with his clean, dry clothes and
witty sense of humor. He’s got
real money in his pockets,
tips for being quick with a match as he
slips the cooks a drink for the extra shrimp.

Juanito collects garbage from
the mouse-infested waste area
filled with empty oil boxes
and opens the cellar’s trap door after
walking up slippery metal steps
and goes to the corner to
find a homeless person willing to drag
twenty bags of garbage
up the steps and onto the curb
for three dollars.

After his chores,
dry clothes and pruned hands
will find themselves at a bar
laced around a glass of beer
as he thinks about the waitress of his dreams—
the woman who doesn’t realize
that she’s the only person who
understands him so well.

Atlantic Beach

Stephen combs this
public beach, watches
patient water run
forever seaward.
A sunbather with
moistened skin
shifts on sand,
stretches lacy legs. He
leans against dead rocks
that wait to crumble,
to become sanded gold
or royal frankincense.
A black cloud shifts.
They cannot identify
the shape it takes.

A man with seven dogs
unleashes his feet,
running strong, like water
seaward, into tidal pools,
into dawns, into shadowed
grottoes. This is the emptiness
caught between the sand,
the impatient death by drowning,
the name for your unmaking.
Tell me, Stephen says,
how you die, and I
will tell you who you are.

First Frost

It snowed the night Robert died
dropped like ash tears upon
my cheek, coat and arm.
Soft flakes fell
as if in a dream

for in dreams we believe
the pale blue light
spiraling upon and around us:
that we are immortal.

The sky shook in my arms
saying, Robbie, Robbie
as we watched those white tears fall
from the seventh floor of St. Vincent’s
and caught on the memory
of an old streaked photograph
two boys in bunny suits
tails and all.

In our dreams
the soft azure ocean would swallow
and we would feel it still in our waking.

The respirator filled his lungs
and I watched, with flecks in my eyes,
as my best friend, partner and lover
poured in years through the tubes
and it all became one night,

one sleep
of luminous clouds
that float with light.

The first frost of the season
too early, only October
and snow shouldn’t have come for weeks
but here, whirled with the weary smell
and monitored machines bouncing black,
your heirloom and inheritance –
all perfect,
one slow dance.

Then it was gone,
like a comet that burned incandescent
entering the earth’s atmosphere.

Snowflakes dropped and melted
into the pavement
and his blood pressure swooped flat.

You looked at me as if my presence
told this story,
the unfolding of a man I never knew.

I shook the bodiless snow from my face
held his swollen limbs
with a tenderness shared between us,

and understood emptiness.

We believe in the demons
that haunt the day:
the pearl of snow so brief
it could have been imagined,
and the window between death and dreams.

Letter to San Francisco

my friends are great
though somewhat irritating

typical boy jealousy that
drives me mad. at least

I have James (when he detaches
from Rafael). we are now

an established gang
in new york. people talk

about us and in their speech
are words like tough,

political, proud.
makes me feel good

to do something
for our community.

promise me you won’t let
a man walk all over you

unless of course it is Folsom
and you are the entertainment

and he is a pair of boots,
but then remember

if he feeds you fruit
you will eat them off the floor.

Manhattan Shore

Tomorrow the sun rises
just a notch more south
than this morning

and as the edge of now
carves another channel
in the bone of my being

atop the bridge,
flags dance in time
to a gentle summer breeze.

I write on Manhattan side,
as a ciggie threatens to burn
yellowed fingers.

Three Britons ask me
to take their picture,
but two dimensions are not enough

to hold the scent of the river,
the golden taste of tobacco,
and the soft touch of their words.