what i'm doing here without you

it was the most honest
you could be
your angry "i don't know"
uttered in swear words,
in beer gulps,
expressed in cheap cigar
smoke.

you took your habits
outside when she
was diagnosed
bought garage sale
air purifiers and
littered them in
every room when
outside put you too far
from your locus of control
command center
under the yellowed lamp,
in the garage sale chair
your beer gut hanging out over boxers
you attention angled at the blue screen
of bloomberg every morning

in the end
it would be you to
die of the cancer
that tried to kill
her hust five years
earlier.

and as we bussed
the butts and crushed
the cans and filled
the dumpsters full
of your garage sale
mind there was nothing
we could say--
nothing we could do
with all you used to
hold off the swell
of i don't knows


###


dropping
down
into the
silence
of the
hum
of
breathers
breathing
in and out
the courage
contracts
expands
delighted
i cut off
from there
from then
i let it
fall--
all--
into nothing
again.


###


where is the center?
the breath breathing itself
in something
deeper
am i doing this
right?
where is it that
the line is
crossed
and i am deep
underwater
breathing in
and out
the stuff of
only my own
things
oh things--
yes
i do not
make
those.


###


hear in the long
since forgotten
woken with death
the trampling through
the late night
offer to walk
and discover
just what lay
there--gone--
without you
i wander--
should be
free of you
now
but you haunt me
or is it i,
keeping you
from some
prized
inner sanctum
in heaven
by my inability
to ever
really
let
loving you
go--


###


i don't love you.
i didn't love you.
i didn't believe
the things you
wouldn't sell
or trade on
scarcity and lies
to keep the
change beside
the cellophane
wrappers that
wouldn't seal
the stench
of yellow smoke
cheap cigars
you died from
bad lite beer
you died from
too much bloomberg
and not enough long
walks talking and
looking at the stars
and counting fireflies
you were every
strong thing
in this world
to me--
every false
belief about
poverty and
unworthiness
and without
you to push
against
i have
fallen in
to that
garage sale
chair
under the
yellow lamp
you could
never look up
from or
climb out
of --
except when
i came home
and you were
once again
alive.


###


did i kill you?
when i left?
or did you
start dying
before that?
with the first
born dead?
with the gunshot?
with the end
right there at
the very beginning
of things.
you prayed me
into being.
now--
i don't know
what i'm
doing here
without
you.