The Rainbow Wasn't Enough

The day, miraculously, continues.
The morning after I learned of your suicide,
LouLou Magazine arrives in the mail
Along with the phone bill and the usual
Bag full of advertisements.
Frozen orange juice for 89 cents at IGA.

Errands to run, then the drive
Across town for dinner at Nana's.
Where I drink a glass of wine and convey
Pieces of food from plate to mouth, as usual.
Life goes on. The water is black

Beyond the counter the window reflects
My physical self in a black sweater,
My reflection which is skin and heat,
Pulse and beats, gesturing
And thinks, I am alive.

What makes me alive when you
Are dead? I ponder my tongue
Resting in my mouth and am confused
By it's existence, but life
As it goes on: the routine

Of Pager bills, hydro, groceries,
The meals one must eat to sustain life.
After dinner a drive back
Across town to that downtown arcade
To play air hockey and I compete
Till my fingers are bruised.

If I can just guard my goal,
The wide black mouth
Where the air hockey puck will glide
And disappear, surely I can guard you
From your death.

The puck slams past my defense,
It slips into the goal
Though I am vigilant, though I try my best
To keep you safe. You slid past me into
Death where there are no Lasalle Diners

To go for breakfast in mid-afternoon,
No late nights of Rummy 500 and conversation,
No mornings of driving past the high school
In the old station wagon while the pinched faces
Of students laughed at us among our smoky radiator,

Rosy with laughter for what they thought we didn't have
But did, not knowing
The man at the wheel was talking of suicide
While I was silent, avoiding
Your pain as one does an accident,

On the road up ahead.
Not knowing we were a short time away
From the sunny, blue-sky day
I would come home from Tasha's
And you would jump off the balcony
With a rope around your neck.

Now I wake clawing my way out of dreams
Where I search for you
And pull you to safety, but the truth is
By the time I reach the balcony where you are,
It's too late.

I remember that summer day at the river
When we walked to the edge by the rapids
Saw the sun burst through all that rain,
A rainbow arced above us, and you said,
Always remember the rainbow after the rain.
I was sad over some blighted love, and barely listened,
Because the rainbow wasn't enough then.

And I try to make enough now, but it isn't

Boulevard

Boulevard

Last night I held a handful
of blue pills, their bitter dust
a blanket on my tongue. When I swallowed
and set the glass down, it cracked in two
and water ran across the table
onto the floor, the way blood
bursts from the hurt body.
Across the alley the figure of my neighbor
stood watching at his window,
a "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" poster
on the wall behind him. We had never met,
though we had witnessed the other's
every gesture of sloth or sorrow. In bed
I waited for sleep to slam open
to the dream-figure of my father
Like a lid or heavy earth, blown up. Earlier that evening
I saw my father's face in a stranger's
As it hovered near me on the metro
His skin fit tight around the man's shoulders
Like a shroud, swathed the warm pillar
Of my father's body until he was lost to me.
I could no longer feel his laughter
Or the pulse on his neck, only myself
Shrinking to the size of a child
In my father's embrace, and even smaller.
I saw this over and over, clinging to the memory
Until my fingers curled and eyelids fused
And I was in the darkness, inside my dreams,
Blue pills forgotten.
I heard his laughter, felt his pulse as I
Pressed my forehead to his neck. I was his
child again and the metro passed the
Boulevard of Broken Dreams.