Every Time I Write a Poem My Girl is Disappointed That I Can’t Manage to Say Anything About Her
after Hanif Abdurraqib
So I’m saying she’s been waiting a long time for this & I owe it
to her. The way you owe someone who spent their last dollar
on your breakfast & paid in change. The way you love someone
who, when there was no money between you, pulled a stuffed bear
from the shelf in her closet & said
here. There was a long run with Jesus & before that drugs & sex
& she knew all of this so much better than me. The same way, flunking
out, she could factor polynomials when I hadn’t hit algebra & ran
the machines in the shop class. How was I always so afraid? Sometimes,
when I watch shows like Outlander
I’m heartbroken for days because I want someone to love like that. The love
that comes back & back, that travels through time & history & fucks up
all kinds of things & still comes out hot & tender. & I feel sorry for myself
because I’ve got this ordinary life that is good, but not that, you know. Because
it’s easy to forget that thirty years ago
we were eating Pop Tarts & sneaking into houses to make out with boys
to metal music, before we knew Tesla was a man & a way of saying electricity
& regret as much as it was a band. By now you think I’m off topic, but I’m not
& that’s the point. When I went away to school & she stayed back with her first
baby, maybe that should have been it
cause life has a way of separating. Of telling you who’s like you & who’s
going to stick around & who won’t. Look, she was so lonely & she met a man,
a good man & I saw him look at her with my eyes & there’s a reason
she can watch Outlander without crying & I can’t. & By now, you’re asking
if she’s beautiful (she is) & kind
(she is) & strong & tender, etc. etc. But, what I need you to know is that when
my brother was dying, she drove 16 hours with an infant to tell me to go home
& sleep & she handled the paperwork & let my mother hold the baby with that
translucent hair, the baby who looked so much like my brother it hurt & then
went home herself & it was another six years
before I saw her again. & when I was almost too old to have a kid & her kids were
nearly grown, but I had one anyway, you won’t be surprised that she’s the one
that showed up to put my newborn over her shoulder & whose house I run to
over state line & state line still when I want to go home & I know that it’s
impossible. So mostly I don’t
write about her because what would I say about this girl who let me drive
her car when it was all she had & ran naked through the park with me & who
still slips me booze when I’m over for the holidays. All I want to do is tell you
I love her, that I’ve loved her all my life & there can’t be any way you don’t
already know.