Roger & Out (a poem in two parts)

1. Floccilation

Saw you last

pulling threads from air

plucking at the buds

and bolls of cotton

blankets for a time

or place, shuffling

your knees up, down, up

to reconsider presences

smoothing percal sheets

rubbing soapbox orator thumbs

close along the hems

of your thin gown.

this is here

blue-blackened wrists held

by short gauze leashes

you wondered at, the white

reins, itches and

you said last when I called;

must be very still.

Roger? Roger?

I am being very still now,

you said;

there is a work

2. Touchstone

At ninety and some change

you are no larger than a breadbox.

Clearing things up at the Fountain

Guest home, I carry you off

in antique tin, oven-baked Wheat Heart, Be Sure To Ask For Us By Name:

wedding license, copyrights, dark socks

in loose fists, tales of great birds

and births, ancient tapes (Caruso lost and gone)

crumbling pesos, a Loosiana dollar

and a deep red Persian prayer rug dark and soft

as a familiar sleep.

Walking to the bus, bag ladies, pickpockets,

briefcase men watch me pass, feigning

disinterest. Every one of them knows

these days there are no sandwich loaves

in breadboxes, this must be Wonder

stuff, the real thing, leavening, the staff of life.

I hug the tin, run my fingers down the all-purpose

gray utility tape while the County scatters your ashes

in pauper’s waves somewhere off Long Beach

harbor. Home, I set the box on my counter

in the kitchen, do not open it

for weeks. Have not yet opened it. I know

what’s inside. I know after all what is

inside. I do. I know.