Swept Away

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NaPoWriMo 2021 Day 4:

"In honor of the always-becoming nature of poetry, I challenge you today to select a photograph from the perpetually disconcerting @SpaceLiminalBot, and write a poem inspired by one of these odd, in-transition spaces."

Swept Away 

                for Lisa Gauvin

 

I’m looking at the picture you painted 

of me and Jesse when he was ten

we’re sitting on a bench looking at the Lachine Rapids

his arm around my shoulders.

I guess I was pretty large in those days 

I observed when I called to thank you for it

and you laughed 

said you hadn’t learned about perspective yet.

 

We talked about when you were still drinking 

brought that guy back from the bar

and when we suggested it was time

for him to leave he said      I might kill people

and we never sobered up so fast

barred ourselves in the only room with a lock      

slept in the same bed, starting at every creak 

the old house made.      In the morning he was gone.

 

Over lunch in Vieux Montréal we laughed

about when we went to see that Lina Wertmüller film

—Giancarlo Giannini rolling around in the sand—

and stayed for the next show—the first Hallowe'en

had to take Valium that night to sleep.

 

In one of the big downtown hotels 

we rode the escalator

to what we thought was an art show

but turned out to be an AA convention. 

Took the subway back to your place

Berri de Montigny I think

too long ago for me to remember 

and you're not here anymore to ask

the cancer you wouldn't talk about

must have grabbed you when I wasn't looking.

 

Strange how we do death these days.

Google coughs up an obituary.  

Your card comes back at Christmas. 

Families cluster outside windows      waving.

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