3800. MICHAEL TOMES

MICHAEL TOMES

I want to disengage the grave, and

take the coating off the mountain -

and I used to see glimpses of that

everywhere : the future with no edge;

me standing near a fountain; and you,

with your head in your hands.

-

Now, someone tells me you are dead,

others hand me a notice  -  off in the

wilds of Afghanistan, the tumbled sands

something like this: narrow, blue, pulsing

with blood, scimitars, minarets and mosques,

proud camels, charnel houses, rifles slung

over shoulders padded and proud with War.

I always said you should trade your firebomb

gunfight-army days for the peace of a Jersey

shore or some more solid vacation in Maine.

Take up dance; Kalashnikov traded for Baryshnikov.

-

Looking at a paper now, I realize I know nothing,

and you were always a cipher  -  the long lost dead,

a penny between clenched teeth  -  or, as in old

early photos, the grotesque western bandits, 

bullet-ridden and dead, propped up for one last

photo, one last shot before burial; the boot-hill

cemetery, the pauper's field, or just a grave on

the edge of some dumb, useless town.