you could tell just by his swagger
that he thought he had it down
better than jesus.
and his eyes were thick-imprints,
morse code blinks and sand paper
that dulled you down and made you obey
to things you never thought you'd
do on two knees and forget about later.
what seems so insignificant on paper
almost laughs at me now,
because oh, they were so complex back then.
the way he'd let mosquitos land on his arm,
watch their skinny little straws swell with his blood
and then smack them against his skin.
the burst of red like an ink-blot: perverse.
his sandwich meat falling out of
thick wheat bread, his tongue catching little
bits of cured ham as it swung down by the crusts,
spicy mustard on his chin as he opened the two sides
and unwrapped the layers, taking them piece by piece
as he would undress a lover.
his carefully rolled cigarettes
from the pouch of a medicine man's tobacco:
how he'd sprinkle a small tube in the center of
the thin paper and roll it back and forth
between his forefinger and thumb until it
was a perfect cylinder,
his tongue not sliding across the glue,
but patting it up and down on either side until
it was just moist enough, and not wet.
i would have taken to being any of those things
but i was only his sprawled out something,
on my back in surrender knowing i'd never amount to much
in his litany of bygone endeavors.

06/04/2008

Posted on 06/04/2008
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