She says: Seek help! Ha-ha Ha-ha & Christ.
— John Berryman
Between friends, often what’s felt’s never uttered
or we’re muffled, elk-dumb, then herded
to a private grief-pasture to putter
and suck. “Anyone manages that, I’m ecstatic” sounded
tragic, an acquiescence to boredom, an admission of lack —
Sorry, S., but my mother is sad, and dogs bounded
through a dream where my father’s mind’s crack
yawned to a chasm, full echo, dial tone (frets
on the same neck). Like flushed quails, odds stack
against us if we bolt at first stirrings, vague threats.
Some thespian voodoo: don’t mention the Scot
or ride your heart’s swing to the corners of its
grin — it’s then blood recalls its own power to clot.
I’m outside myself with thanks that you called
but wish you were elsewhere, Texas perhaps, caught
by the cuff on the quills of vast places, stalled
in sunlight, forced to write. To qualify,
mediate, lie. My father’s a shit, S., old, bald —
Christ, there’s no knowing when or where or how or why.