Posted by michele (152.163.188.230) on December 28, 2002 at 08:51:56:
i was never any good at elegies. i've been debating for weeks whether or not to post this. he continues to invade my pen.
No Right Memory
for James Kopta
Maybe he chalked your belly when he should have been chalking
his cue
Maybe he shared your car’s front seat on some random New Year’s Eve
with the goth cigarette girl
Maybe he traded his Moondog CD for your books
by McGuane and Crews
Maybe he threw out the drunk devil guy
who wouldn’t leave and got mean
Maybe you fed him a tofu burger at 3 am and almost asked
for that kiss tasting of steam and welder’s mask
Maybe you read his stories and didn’t know
his genius until then
Maybe you and he stopped speaking after you broke up
with his best friend
Maybe you left and didn’t think of him much after that
Maybe now you remember his fez and the way he wrestled
the lead singer of the band
Maybe you think of the blizzarded night you drove
down Lark Street and spotted him running to grab
the last cold eggrolls that the Chinese place sold cheap
before closing and he was leaping in the wind
with no jacket, amnesiac to cold and the night’s end
and his fate four years later of floating face down
in the Mohawk River
Maybe he’s dead and no one who knows you now knows him
or how you can’t stop cataloguing the nights
he sat on your living room floor, all cigarette
and whiskey and talking his lithium-laced crazy talk
that you wanted to bottle and sell as panacea
drink as decree
Maybe he let you make his music and dance, let you or invented you
and maybe you’re having difficulty telling the difference
but you didn’t cry until you reached Illinois
Maybe you thought you could go
back
Maybe you pulled over because you lost his stories and you don’t know
the color of his eyes
Maybe you had no right to have loved him a little bit always
You have no right to resurrect it and you don’t know how
Turn around and go back home to Wichita
You never said goodbye
Maybe you shouldn’t start now