Fires. Essays, Poems, Stories

shapers of my life and my writing. As you can see, I'm still under their influence, though the days are relatively clear now, and the silences are right
    POEMS
    DRINKING WHILE DRIVING
    It's August and I have not
    read a book in six months
    except something called The Retreat From Moscow
    by Caulaincourt.
    Nevertheless, I am happy
    riding in a car with my brother
    and drinking from a pint of Old Crow.
    We do not have any place in mind to go,
    we are just driving.
    If I closed my eyes for a minute
    I would be lost, yet
    I could gladly lie down and sleep forever
    beside this road.
    My brother nudges me.
    Any minute now, something will happen.
    LUCK
    I was nine years old.
    I had been around liquor
    all my life. My friends
    drank too, but they could handle it.
    We'd take cigarettes, beer,
    a couple of girls
    and go out to the fort.
    We'd act silly.
    Sometimes you'd pretend
    to pass out so the girls
    could examine you.
    They'd put their hands
    down your pants while
    you lay there trying
    not to laugh, or else
    they would lean back,
    close their eyes, and
    let you feel them all over.
    Once at a party my dad
    came to the back porch
    to take a leak.
    We could hear voices
    over the record player,
    see people standing around
    laughing and drinking.
    When my dad finished
    he zipped up, stared a while
    at the starry sky—it was
    always starry then
    on summer nights—
    and went back inside.
    The girls had to go home.
    I slept all night in the fort
    with my best friend.
    We kissed on the lips
    and touched each other.
    I saw the stars fade
    toward morning.
    I saw a woman sleeping
    on our lawn.
    I looked up her dress,
    then I had a beer
    and a cigarette.
    Friends, I thought this
    was living.
    Indoors, someone
    had put out a cigarette
    in a jar of mustard.
    I had a straight shot
    from the bottle, then
    a drink of warm collins mix,
    then another whisky.
    And though I went from room
    to room, no one was home.
    What luck, I thought
    Years later,
    I still wanted to give up
    friends, love, starry skies,
    for a house where no one
    was home, no one coming back,
    and all I could drink
    DISTRESS SALE
    Early one Sunday morning everything outside—
    the child's canopy bed and vanity table,
    the sofa, end tables and lamps, boxes
    of assorted books and records. We carried out
    kitchen items, a clock radio, hanging
    clothes, a big easy chair
    with them from the beginning
    and which they called Uncle.
    Lastly, we brought out the kitchen table itself
    and they set up around that to do business.
    The sky promises to hold fair.
    I'm staying here with them, trying to dry out
    I slept on that canopy bed last night.
    This business is hard on us all.
    It's Sunday and they hope to catch the trade
    from the Episcopal church next door.
    What a situation here! What disgrace!
    Everyone who sees this collection of junk
    on the sidewalk is bound to be mortified.
    The woman, a family member, a loved one,
    a woman who once wanted to be an actress,
    she chats with fellow parishioners who
    smile awkwardly and finger items
    of clothing before moving on.
    The man, my friend, sits at the table
    and tries to look interested in what
    he's reading—Froissart's Chronicles it is,
    I can see it from the window.
    My friend is finished, done for, and he knows it
    What's going on here? Can no one help them?
    Must everyone witness their downfall?
    This reduces us all.
    Someone must show up at once to save them,
    to take everything off their hands right now,
    every trace of this life before
    this humiliation goes on any longer.
    Someone must do something.
    I reach for my wallet and that is how I understand it:
    I cant help anyone.
    YOUR DOG DIES
    it gets run over by a van.
    you find it at the side of the road
    and bury it.
    you feel bad about it.
    you feel bad personally,
    but you feel bad for your daughter
    because it was her pet,
    and she loved it so.
    she used to croon to it
    and let it sleep in her bed.
    you write a poem about it.
    you call it a poem for your daughter,
    about the dog getting run over by a van
    and how you looked after it,
    took it out into the woods
    and buried it deep, deep,
    and that poem turns out so good
    you're almost glad the little dog
    was run over, or else you'd never
    have written that good poem.
    then you sit down to write
    a poem about writing a poem
    about the death of that dog,
    but while you're writing you
    hear a woman scream
    your name, your first name,
    both syllables,
    and your heart stops.
    after a minute, you continue writing.
    she