Lachrymal Humidities

in memory of Ted Berrigan

Lose a brother? Lose a pa? At the sound of the tone it will be exactly

sayonara. Meet me in the lobby of Casa Purgatoria when it's Turkish

bath hour. We will sweat out whatever the fuck it is that's unclean

and inside us, at least inside me. Round and brown and getting cool.

Vestigal feeling in the monkey I cut off myself. Having stood beside

the catafalque to nominte him for heroism I did not expect a nom-

ination for tragedy to be so rapidly forthcoming. You saw as well as

I did how the hot afternoon was grateful to him for bequeathing

himself to its mysterious finitude. Dry and bright and breezy and

the hours were honey. The shadow of a fully leafed-out tree over our

white knuckles. I would have liked to have been holding beads to

show how humble and elated I felt. I talked of farce as if it were life.

Life itself seemed more than ever high hips in a form-fitting sheath.

I can be restfully subdued by the sight of long undulant fingers,

please let me show you my entire body! Every time you see me re-

call my neck sinews, my piano-string forearm tendons, my pneu-

matic sexual flesh, and my mild and erotic eyeballs—forget the shy-

ness about me that you can't understand. You can easily read in my

eyes how voluntary my fantasies are, and how flattering they are to

you. Body. B-o-d-y. Ah, the bruises. Later for laying flowers, says the

body. O body, O tough stuff, O body capable of sleep. I break the

shaft of my spear over my knee and kiss a patch of concrete. Then

from hands and knees I rise to my full height.

Source: The City Keeps (Wave Books, 2016)