written By
I think of this Janis
Joplin
longhair, low-slung
corduroy,
California flip-flop,
cello-playing boy.
His hair swung
like a tiki bar
curtain,
the fringe of a
flapper dress
across my leg.
Together in a twin
bed
that hair was a shade
and I was a window
and the tassel, from
my neck to my navel,
pulled
Itself
down.
How many one-night stands do you remember?
How many do you care to recount?
That boy played like nothing we could afford.
A hundred-year whiskey on the rocks.
The melt of a glacier
pooled at our feet.
Now someone says Catalina or cello or cancer
and I’m there again, singing over his requiem.
Tassel and tongue.
Shade and shroud.
Was it the hair, or the hands?
The sound, or the shape of the sound?
I’m saying this so that you remember him.
So his mother knows that night is accounted for.
