Letter to Larry from a Motel 6 Parking Lot Off Route 212
Outside Clackamas, sparrows flutter against clouds promising rain
and I remember 1982 and you and Janine and empty gin
bottles from Walgreen’s and I wanted to write
to say I miss you and your smug remarks and bad jokes
and clove cigarettes on long drives through Portland’s outer ring.
If I could say it another way I would, but cold winds
breaking against my back and rain blooming
on my windshield erases any charity
I once lent. I know we’re through, Larry;
we’ve been done for so long I don’t think about you at Christmastime.
Larry, when I found you both, cold flesh pressed to cold
flesh amid grey angels mute to your trespasses,
something snapped and stung and tasted like chewing aluminum foil.
Infidelity is one thing, But on your parent’s grave?
Larry, that’s just sick.
It’s 10 years later and I still wear my funeral suit.
If you could see me, Larry, you’d be proud;
I grew up like you said. But why would you even look?
Memory’s gun tastes like fear, like bathtubs of gutted worms,
like hands clutching gravestones in ecstasy.
