ROLE RESEARCH

I.

“Jumpers” he calls them, pushing a picture

under my dried tabloid-puke eyes.

The homicide detective at New York’s 19th precinct

sits across from me, the mascara maven.

Role research. He has no eyelids left,

just crumpled Polaroids. Murders, suicides,

robberies, kidnapping: seen one 36-year-old

Caucasian male impaled on a pole after

plummeting the length of New Jersey,

seen ’em all.

He shows me his squad’s most famous—

an old Pa type, flailing fleshy hoses

chasing a hurricane of illnesses before

shattering his jewel tones into concrete’s hide.

Story goes Pa told the cabby to wait

while he went back upstairs to grab something.

He’d forgotten to kill himself so

he jumped right out of skin, planting his broken ass

print into pavement; a grenade’s touch.

Forever blowing off that dinner, his mother,

all those knots that took his strings

to Death Row long ago.

In the picture, he’s winking at you.

A curved lighting bolt of chompers

dashes across his face, a smile

splashed from impact.

Silly string and party favors

ditching his stomach.

Left index finger doing the vertical jitterbug.

Mr. Potato Head meets Matisse’s conception,

or the photo that gets taken while racing down a rollercoaster,

the one you know is coming, so you plan for it.

The detective says it’s funny

how he’s reminded of the time

he found his son’s crayons

melted across a photo of his grandfather.

II.

Gin and Tonic rests between his buttons on Father’s Day.

He’s nursing someone else’s heart, alone in a Cuban restaurant,

occupying a heavy stare at the empty seat across from him.

Ignored by all but his own thoughts that will someday

outthink him. Alone.

I watch, alone.

A waiter tosses him a menu,

a crumb into a coffin.

There are no more quick decisions at his age—

can’t have steak without one’s teeth,

can’t have pasta without a teenager’s cholesterol level.

The waiter says he’ll come back. Old man wishes for his wife.

She’d know what to do, what to order.

Give him her lemon, take away the bread and butter,

say, “You’re too fat, Charlie,” kiss his earlobe

on the way to the powder room. She’d pluck

the aches from his brow, toast to all

the old, funny things neither could remember.

I approach his table, bloodshot snow settled in my eyes.

I tell him I’m far away from my own papa.

My heart’s been chasing its tail since July 4^th, 2006.

I never really knew either of my grandfathers,

except for one of their fists. I shred all

incriminating evidence of confidence.

Bury my hand under my bangs,

eat the last of his olives without asking.

Was his walk home further than mine?

Does he live for her pictures alone?

He looks at the makeup that’s carried my face

for so many years, says, “I’m not as lonely as you think I am.”