Keeping You

[billy]

i did so like the poem. i get the feel it's about a lost brother. in truth i saw little to nothing i didn't enjoy, maybe cut out a few odd words in order to tighten it up but that's about it.

I wish I had the hands of Michelangelo
so I could sculpt another you is [so] needed?
out of my tears and all your ashes;
not a David, but a you--- no need for [but]
your lungs, your heart, our eyes
fired in a kiln of Bic lighters this is a brilliant image, it's the first thing in the poem that made me think of children
until sooty and black.

I would stuff you with those million foam filters
that you flicked between the bricks on our front porch
so you’d be squishy and soft,
then scent you in Irish Spring
and whiten with Crest.
I’d mind never to set you too close
to the microwave, so you’d never get
nuked out of existence--- an expanded image of deep affection yet not at all soppy

again.

Once you were the Marlboro man no need for [once]
and we rode together, not on a Camel,
but in a ‘97 Ford Taurus:
You in the front,
me in the car seat behind you. no need for [you],
We sang along to “Mrs. Robinson,”
blew bubbles,
and I learned your particular
“drag racing.”
Those trips to Circle K
meant ice-cream drumsticks,
more fuel [for your a d d i c t i o n]
and not telling mom.
_________________________________________________________________________

You built our home out of old cardboard packs
in the center of a ring-around-the-rosie.

But when we all fell down,
you never
got
back
up.


My Marlboro man.