Liam Rector

Soon the summer Now the pleasant purgatory Of spring is over, Soon the choking Humidity In the city On the fire escapes In a sleeveless T-shirt Smoking a cigar In tune with the tremor Of the mindless yellow Commercial traffic Moving in the city, Where no one really Buys a car, American Or otherwise, Where we will, As Rilke said we would Where we will Wake, read, write Long letters And in the avenues Wander restlessly To and fro On foot in The humidity, Where soon I’ll shower, dress, Take the dog out for a piss, And mail this.

Home from school at six years old, first grade, And uncle there to tell me Mommy Gone, Mommy not be coming back any Time soon, Liam, Mommy had to go to Mental hospital. Nervous breakdown. Years later Mommy, when she gets out Of mental, often says, “If you’re A bad boy for me Liam you’re Going to send me back, back Into mental hospital, like you did First time.” At 13 I find out Mom had been doing years In a federal prison all that time, For stealing, so no mental hospital for Mommy. Breakdown ours alone. I was on my own.

I left here at eight And returned at 75. In between I largely wasted America. I married, had children, Distinguished myself in a profession Full of fools, becoming one myself, As is the way Of this (or, I suppose, of any other) world. I missed The Nobel but I did bring down The Pulitzer. The weather, The politics, the stars, And my own small contribution All lined up, and I got one. So “Pulitzer” became my middle name Before I came here, where no one cares A whit about such things. I failed at love. That’s where I truly fucked up. I couldn’t. The women in this town Are mostly severe, resentful —The men bitter, disappointed: A perfect place for my purposes. I stay in a room In the house of an old woman Who doesn’t want to have sex any more And neither do I So we do not Trouble each other on that front, Which is good. I do like to drink. I used to love to eat But then I don’t much Give a shit About any of that now. The old woman sometimes says wistfully God will soon be calling both of us Back home, but as an agnostic I don’t believe that. As an American, I don’t buy that. I came here to retire from love, To face my failure to love As I attempted to face everything Else before, and that Is exactly what I am doing and doing With the exactness I used to put into My work, for which I received the Pulitzer. I hate a coward. My son Came here the other day and asked Exactly when I might Be coming back And I sent him off without an answer. The answer Seems to be staying here, Staying honestly here and coming to terms With my greatest single failure. My wife is dead. To me, It seems I am left over To eat a shit sandwich. “Eat me,” the world says, Now that I have lost my appetite. We used to say, “Eat me” To each other in high school, Another thing from which no one Ever recovers. America likes to think Every one can recover from every thing, But about this, Especially, America is wrong.