(for Jerry)
You remember those evenings
when they said the catastrophe was out there
and we listened,
pretending we needed them to teach us
its code,
pretending we knew nothing
of its dyslexia,
its empty gaze,
its shuttered madness,
the rabid tangle
of pain under the sheets,
the texture of rubble
and the bombing that never stops?
You remember those evenings
when we accepted
our ideas
poached,
our suffering
thrice-removed?
Dream on, they said,
that someone gives a damn
about your private music
of sighs and glottal stops,
and we thought they were right.
We thought everyone else was always too busy
fighting long distance
for the right to breathe – in Sudan,
or Jharkhand or some bathroom in Malibu –
and we were alone
on night rides that never ended.
Irony helped
and billboards.
We had one that said
Caution.
Wet paint.
Shows no sign of drying.
We knew even then it wasn’t true.
Paint dries.
Rides end.
Language leaks.
The billboards, they remain.