Donald Britton

for David Cobb Craig At first, we had ways of talking That filled up the evening Until some things could be said. It was a made-up Situation in which lives could be lost. Whatever that was now grows inside Our bodies—a spongy, pulpy cell— Causing pieces of paper we hold In our hands to appear And disappear. All I ask Is to take me away from this place, To another place, very much like This place, where we can meet And six months later Be married. You laughed and went with me.

Under the trees, where everything Is still possible in prescribed doses: Hundreds of accordion-like units Without edges. But there is no unwinding Of minutes to stay the execution Of a rain-shot weekend in early Beach weather, no elixir To revive the amputated flower Still kicking on its ghost-stem In a bowl of water, no direction In which to steer The hapless, puzzled out-of-towner Other than straight ahead, To the sheer drop-off Where his guidebook gutters Or deposits him, addressless, In thin air.

Here in Italy the buildings are the color Of dead skin and the sky is “tragic” And the rivers are brown and turbulent And everybody is always stopping by To say “Ciao!” and then “Ciao!” We think a lot about emotion, chiefly The emotion of love. There is much to cry about. And after, sleep. One falls in love So as not to fall asleep. I have just awakened To the fact that I am not in love And am about to fall asleep or write an opera In which someone falls asleep and dies Or write a letter to a friend or call somebody up To meet me later for a drink. Maybe it’s too late. Tomorrow I will go out and buy something to make me happy. I remember standing in the train station in Pisa Hoping to catch the sound of an American voice In the crowd. It’s good to remember such things When you think you haven’t “lived” enough Because you need to learn not to regret What you’ve never done. Fortunately, I remember Everything that's ever happened to me. I remember asking a woman I didn't know Whether or not she was the person I was looking for And she said, “Yes, much to my regret.” That wasn’t difficult to remember Because it just happened a few minutes ago. Other things are harder. I don’t remember Right away what I had for breakfast two weeks ago Last Thursday or the specific date of my first Masturbation, though I’m sure that with some effort I could recover the lasting details. I remember My father using a green hair tonic called “H-A,” Which stood for “Hair Arranger.” I remember the night My father tore out a big clump of my mother's hair In an argument. They were drunk and I came out Of my room in my pajamas and asked them to stop. If I said I wanted to fall apart in someone’s arms You would have to assume I was being sarcastic And you would be right. No one has arms in which I care to fall apart, at least not at the moment. Tomorrow night I am going to see a play about “A contemporary man in the process of falling apart.” I think everyone falls apart about twenty times a day. I’m still confused about why I mentioned Italy At the beginning of this poem, especially since It’s all a terrible lie. My students would say It means “the poet does not know where he is; Some catastrophe has distorted his perceptions.” I am drowsy but happy and resemble the corner Of a big empty room. I am drunk and staring Into the bathtub. A lot of people are standing Around listening to music. My fingers Smell like cigarettes. I am wondering If there is any way to describe the pleasure Someone derives from seeing a man’s cock Shoved up someone’s ass, or how one Can go on like this, even after having given up Completely to nervousness, and to death. I remember the one night I spent on a ship. The porters woke us at dawn. We stood At the railing to sight the blue and transparent island Gaping through mist in the distance. For breakfast, We ate peaches. I hated the people I was with, But I must have been incredibly stupid. We spent the day On the island, seesawed in the park, and waded in the sea.

An enormous list: coming and goings, nights and mornings, births and deaths and rebirths and second deaths and little lapses like grace notes where sadness surges in: sadness surges in, a passing-windshield light-effect on the ceiling. Would you prefer it some other way? I’m versatile. I’m hungry. I’m hot. I’m not really sad either. I’m happy, it’s just that this happiness isn’t the happiness I expected or sought and for a time I confused this happiness with the sadness I thought I was experiencing. I feel a lot better now. Oooh. That should give you an indication of the improvement. Oooh, there it goes again. And again, only I didn’t say ‘Oooh’ this time. I can’t explain it, but it feels terrific, like a totally fulfilled infatuation or a California Lifestyle apartment ad.