you were the wife

I learned comedy and speech

I learned comedy and speech from radio static
and the exotic late-night hosts
who crackled in the airwaves on routine.

And as I fell asleep I heard the false TV formality
and the casual importance of tonight's guests.
"the amazing, the lovely, the talented!"

I knew and I was the spontaneous studio audience:
We shared in each gag, pet, band, monologue
and there in my sheets I heard it all firsthand.

Through radio, they preached no glory in celebrity
but in the good-natured innuendo between old friends.
It was "here's a woman famous for her beauty."

The world came as a challenge through headphones
"you've never done a good thing twice, never
had a sin by itself, never made a joke that would last."

this is for you, johnny

all that can be cured

'all that can be cured by coffee, milk or alcohol
is short-lived, only side-stepped and thirst is stubborn'

'but you are the freest kind of man' I said,
'an artist at least, surely you can overcome this'

'in its nature lacking and empty--jealous even!
you are yourself in your craving'

'you printed the mosquito so cleanly
that it lost its form, you are powerful
as a shape-shifter like an alchemist or a landscape painter.
this has the least of influence on you'

'oh, but the kitchen is the closest place for it
and the chandelier makes the dining room table safe.
but I'd like to escape that sofa and the eccentric
wet halos that will laminate this night for us both'

Let me outlive my grandmother

let me outlive my grandmother
let me reach that age when I understand
storytelling as it's spoken by the mouthful,
when the muscle memory
of food and sex
are no longer encouraging in their repetition,
still, let me reach my arm around you.

I will stretch into these orange mornings
long enough to see through my eyelids
and feel their warmth in my ripening organs.
I will live more than I have been asked.
I will live for the privilege
of recounting it all when I am old.

though it's not enough to see
to live and remember;
I will hand out all I hold sacred,
my idealized women who have flown
from all but my memory, I will tell
of all the lies I've told to my friends
and in poems,

do you remember the way we sat then?
so uncomfortable
at our desk, but we wouldn't admit it.
I want to give myself out.