The VA Dialogue

The VA Dialogue

The day after my final grandfather died,
I was in Palo Alto, California, at the VA,
on a business meeting with a doctor in Pulmonary and
Critical Care.  We were there to talk about his
upcoming 25th Reunion, not about how my grandfather,
born in Maine, who when I was in grade school
built things larger than himself, in the years before he
died, couldn’t walk three steps without a wheeze.

We talked about how the doctor was doubtful he’d be
able to attend his reunion next year, despite his volition,
but that he wanted to be involved in any way possible,
not about how we could not convince my grandfather
to put the tubes in his nose and not in his mouth.

And there we were, talking at a table amid
an assortment of wandering veterans
talking about college endowments,
and the role of philanthropy in a down economy, all the while,
me wanting to ask if he’d seen many shipyard electricians with
lung failure, or anyone working at a printing press in the 70s,
and how on earth you got them to listen to
any advice other than, ‘Take these pills.’

Do they just get tired of not dying?  I almost asked.
In a manner of speaking, I suppose,
he, as a result, did not quite say.

And I imagine myself, as we walk towards the parking lot,
saying, not out of the blue, “He passed out on the toilet a lot;
and that is how he died,” and the doctor replying,
with his medical smile, “I’d love to have a look at that file.”

Karl’s Lucky Fuck You Tie

Karl’s Lucky Fuck You Tie

He wore the tie twice, once for each year
I was on the high school team;
once for each game we played away against Farmington,
who was apparently our rival, denoted by the fact
those were the only games in which an
ambulance was parked outside the rink.

In a diamond shape the letters sat,
strategically arranged, the pattern uniform from knot to base,
not calling attention to themselves, until,
in his locker room speech, Karl made it known: 
Boys, tonight I’m wearing my lucky Fuck You tie.

In the first season on the team, I, a junior,
looked around as the sagely seniors snickered, in on the joke;
sensitive to the information gap, Karl walked around t
o each one of us, at this point mostly dressed in
our mostly plastic armor, extending the tie under
each of our anticipating noses, and the secret message
revealed itself to each one of us, causing a
snicker and a sense of imperfect solidarity.

And that year, we played to victory,
powered by the fortune of a textile profanity,
Karl never too quick to congratulate, walking into the locker room
as we de-iced and de-robed, the melting snow on the rubber
floor causing him to comment, It’s like a fucken bukkake in here.
Only I laughed. 
I knew someone had to know it, he said with a smile.

It seems, though, that luck has to run its course,
even with worded neckties, for my senior year,
when again he circled the room and demonstrated
to the underclassmen, we skated with gusto to no avail, the
goal I scored (only the second in the tenure of my youth),
being the only indication that we were there,
Farmington’s reaction being to respond with six.

The saving power of the tie being lost, he sought a
source of blame, and so the referees, whose
poor judgement in Karl’s eyes, received no dearth of
heartfelt criticism, the most resounding example of which,
immediately before his expulsion from the game
(and which would gain for him the eternal respect of his players),
saw him screaming between plays,
I don’t mind getting fucked,
as long as there’s a little love.

Confessional with Cassye

Confessional with Cassye

There was some confusion about how to pay for my dinner, our drinks, but soon

all was settled and we had our beers and my burrito, seated towards the entrance amid the college crowd.

It wasn’t school, actually – merely busy, a lot of work.  But then began the

real reasons why the sickness and the stress:  one Arthur, a known when last I saw her, a source of great allure, had become the cause of her recurring ressentiment,

turning, nearly, back upon herself, aided by the tools of years before.

It was a circuitous sentence that led her to admit she’d been a cutter, and I

pointed to the skin below my rolled up sleeves, revealing a similar experience from a similar cause.  She saw my

index fingers but not the scars.

“Don’t,” I say feebly, nearly begging, keeping in check my own

dark draw to the wound before the blood, looking at the lips

(a smile?  a frown?) slowly opening before the

inevitable tongue starts flapping about, tracing its contemplative path down the forearm,

knowing how hard it is to know better when the choice is there and

you want to make a mistake.

We conclude, as independently of one another we have before, that she shouldn’t have to feel what he’s making her feel, but

fuck,

there’s physical attraction, can all this really be reduced to that?  I mean every time I’m near him, every time -

So interesting and open it remains, as the

source of their relation visits soon, propelling them both into close proximity, inviting the

possibility of so many things (sharing a bad anew, creative mutilations, dialogues with a streaky mirror),

but, as it is, my burrito is gone

and our beers as well,

so we choose our next adventure, the bar to which

we were initially supposed to go

(where twice she was asked if her name was her name),

before we ended up back at her place, and

before the closed interstate placed me back on Pine Street,

where after hydrating and seeing new photos of her quartet, with quick arms around each other,

we had originally bid farewell.