Settling Old Affairs

Settling Old Affairs

Although we come together

Nothing can come of us.  But we would not give

It up, for death is beaten…

God bless you.  Guilt is magical.

                                                                James Dickey

                                                                Adultery

though I was hit early
and often 

and with a man nearly twice

my age I made it

seem inevitable that I could
take it up at all
what he called
my mantle and hefting it

all the way
to the mountains and back
those flatirons 

rising high because they were

pushed up millennia ago
out of the boulders and tall as New
England cemetery stones my then house-
cat husband and I drove

                                                  out to

meet them and in that earth I dug

my own grave and I lay down in it

and stayed and stayed

and stayed until the day

I came back and gave away
what remained of us
for free or cheap
fingers that knew me

and I lived
in that house for years
while I made

my way through

and though I can’t say I knew my way
                                                and I can’t say

I would

even even today

I will say all that rocking
back forth back

forth back

forth back

into a new groan is a syllable
coming but not yet sound

a word not yet
Word

a sentence
not a sentence not yet
not yet but almost and almost, wait
for it and rejoice,

life.

Last Match

Last Match

I’d wanted to write about a pocket

match and imagine it to be the last match

the man stashed in his all-day longing

to knock off work and cock alongside

the dock and walk back over his age

at the end of his day to day making wages

how wading in each moment he waited

and created this intimate space over the flame

that stayed in the face and placated

the one wooden stick he’d tithed to

himself counting them all out on the blighted

table now eight days sober while he drank

his coffee black while the tide swung while

he took just one and savored it and made it through

the whole dragging day it would be

the only flame he’d need to light the night

home to that bare table you’d seen him right?

lifting this last last at last all day

though the steam and the heat in the wheel

house through the frozen steel dredge and nets

through fathoms of letdowns deep reasons he’d seek needing

it and finally finding it right where he packed

it in his right pocket wrapped in a plastic zip baggie

because hey it’s a sopping wet job and what

if he’d fallen in the water what if

he’d caught the boss off guard what

if the doctor is going to tell him awful

and shocking news about his mother or about

his wife or about his son or about

himself isn’t it all cupped in the middle

of his hand when he draws it out

skinny little thing it is this match this one

plastic shrined match I’d wanted to 

give to this one hard-working mother-

fucker now tell me you tell me how it

should end when the shift’s blown

and he lifts his fist to the wall

at the close of it all and wants to hammer

down but shitall he’s exhausted he’s so

exhausted he can’t even finish

lifting that fist he can’t even lift his beanie

off he can’t barely drag his ass

home to the bare table to the last

of the last of the matches but he’ll make a pass

to the Catholic statues at the 12

step and lift one lit candle to the next and say

what all act of regret and keep that match stashed

because what’s the sense in getting it

lit and wasting it if there’s a flame already made 

and a skin-thin wick all ready to take it whatever

hand that lifted and tipped and bowed over it

thanks man 'preciate it and dove in 

before the wax had even started to give 

shit listen we all got to get lit

with our trinkets and 

talismans our flaming

saints 

aint we? (ahhh...

aint 

we?