Poetry |

“Literal,” “What Is That Song You Sing for the Dead?” & “Last Ocean”

Literal                                                                                                           

 

I walk my dog

a different route

to avoid the dog

with no personality.

We cut through

the parking lot

of the Elks Club

that will prosecute

if we linger; take

a right at the Virgin

on the corner —

hey, girl.

It’s 63 degrees: sunny, salt-

breeze and floral —

like it’s possible to be

in love sometimes.

My friend wants

to retire, but re-

fuses to use that

word. It means the next

thing you do is die.

I don’t tell her

another word won’t

save her. I worry

why I’m scared,

again, of parallel

parking. A jogger says

my dog is a cutie.

Her name’s Alice Neel,

but she doesn’t get

the reference. I don’t

care because greatness

often goes unnoticed.

I gave her

a Benadryl before the walk —

the preacher was

weed eating across the street;

he’s handsome

because he’s young

and believes nothing

in this life matters. His

daughter wears

a skirt over jeans

when she plays. There’s

a word spelled wrong

on their church sign.

I pick up after my dog

except when I don’t,

which is late at night

or when I’m mad at

everyone and hope any-

one will step in it.

My neighbor records

everyone through her

window without posting

a sign. We hope she’ll

die, which isn’t terrible

to say, if you know her.

My friend texts she’s

sitting by water in the

town where they killed

witches who weren’t

witches and it shouldn’t

matter if they were. She’s

staring at three lighthouses

on the horizon — she thinks

more of the same thing

ties us to reality. She knows

nothing bad can happen

on a day like this.

 

 

*     *     *     *     *

 

 

What Is That Song You Sing for the Dead?                                                      

 

Not “Amazing Grace,” so tired the sound, and who wants

ten thousand tedious years? “When We All Get to Heaven,”

but that’s too happy, and people might think you wanted your mom

to die. By the time the third person says she’s in a better place,

you’ll want to rip somebody’s face off. “Til the Storm Passes By”?

Her dad used to sing that in church Sunday mornings,

and when he started to weep, your sister carried the tune

while she played piano. Maybe something funny, unexpected —

she liked to laugh, but probably not: she had respect for ceremony.

Your sister always joked: mom loves her some funeral. No Elvis

even though she told you she named you after him. Of course,

her friends will play the one she asked for: Peter and Joan

will drive from North Carolina, two-part harmony with guitar.

Mom told you the name of the song last August before you left.

When you hear it, she said, I want you to think of me in the wind

through the trees. You told her not to be “maudlin,” a word

you can’t remember ever using in a sentence, because you didn’t

want to talk about her death. You’ve spent your whole life

trying to write hard truths, but failed your mother when she needed

to tell her own. You won’t be able to listen to that song

for years. You could write something new: one with the two of you

crammed in the basement rocking chair when you were five

and she held you down to cut your toenails while you squirmed

and giggled, and she giggled but got it done, even the little toe.

A song with cookies made with Crisco, not butter, and extra flour.

The hum of a window air-conditioner you heard nights you and your

sister slept in the cool on your parents’ bedroom floor. “The bus

is on the hill,” a chorus over and over those winter mornings

she rushed you out of the house for school. But you’ve never been

able to write a song, and you’re old enough, broken enough

to know that a whole life can’t fit into one, a whole life can’t fit

into a life. Remember the night years ago when she stood

in the front yard in her nightgown and your father’s hunting boots.

She wanted to see the comet that appears only every seventy-five

years because she knew she wouldn’t be alive the next time.

She said, I think that’s it, and pointed up — the whole-note stars,

the yard beneath muddy and humming.

 

 

 

*     *     *     *     *

 

 

Last Ocean 

                                                                                                              

 

Where was she those final two days

after we brought her home? The body

 

we knew her in, loved her in was there,

but where was she? Still inside listening?

 

Looking inward toward light or dark

that I have to believe not scary?

 

It’s so easy to die and so hard.

And the morphine. And the lying

 

beside her, and the calm

I didn’t think I’d feel, the paying

 

attention, trying to soak in all of her.

She woke up once, stretched her arms,

 

not above her head, but down, like someone

waking from a nap surprised

 

they fell asleep in early dusk. She’d told

my sister weeks before she didn’t want to go:

 

your dad doesn’t even know how to fold a towel.

Somehow, we knew to gather around, knew

 

it was about to happen. My friend believes

when people die, for a brief moment,

 

they understand everything about everything

and love encompasses them. I don’t know

 

if I believe that, but today I want to —

looking at the picture I took of her

 

on vacation when she stood on the shore

of her last ocean—her feet sometimes

 

covered in water and always, until she

came back to us, sinking in sand.

Contributor
Aaron Smith

Aaron Smith is the author of four books of poetry with the Pitt Poetry Series: Blue on Blue Ground, awarded the Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize, Appetite, Primer, and most recently The Book of Daniel. In 2023, Pitt will publish his fifth collection, Stop Lying. He is associate professor of creative writing at Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Posted in Poetry

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.