RELENTLESS
Rounder and deeper than the line,
the sound
breaks up through dry leaves.
Meandering, the river,
through you. Branded, you,
with even the bitterness
that brands
the Western range.
THIS IS NOT A MANIFESTO
His last days as a free citizen,
lying on the floor unable to rise
only to fall again, blind and lost
among the scattered pills, the
running faucet, food in the fridge
in the isolation of his apartment.
For months she’d read to him from
the blind Borges and Nagarjuna,
books he piled around him in thin towers
on his couch. He stopped her mid-sentence,
said You skipped.
I’m reading the translation, not the
commentary. You know the commentary.
Later she says I’m going to be
so fucked up when you’re gone—
Quickly, impatiently, he replies
Oh, stop.
His birthday in Intensive Care, tube in his lungs,
a final line he smiles at, half-sedated, raising his
eyebrows three times quickly to show
he hears her say
That’s a great costume.
Too bad you missed the Halloween parade.
Terese Coe Shot Silk
