Don’t Tell Me

I can show you the names now brittle

scars puckered, up twenty-five foot out the 

skin of that fat elm tree above the park—

she loved throwin’ bread at tight pairs of ducks.

I can show the ashtray in the lunchroom

the spark-plug factory, porcupined.

The porch at home where sometimes I couldn’t

even take off my workboots just left ‘em 

untied, too worried where my feet would go.

I can show you the creased pictures of our 

honeymoon in Hawaii, that night 

we danced drunk by the little pond, boiling

with floating candles, floating on petals.

Danced so loose, like ropes get when you wet ‘em.

I can show the thousand cigarette burns 

against the wall where I did it one drag 

at a time, too afraid to do it all 

at once. I can show you the tight, white bed, 

the blistering lights— I hated dyin’,

the quiet, clean feel that both held me there

and what turned me loose; I know it well now.

They will not let me talk to your grandma.

They won’t let me smoke Kools from a green pack.

In heaven, they tell you all the things you 

never learn’t on Earth.  They tell you as if 

it ought to be celestial privilege.

If you see her, tell her that the average 

human being falls asleep in seven 

minutes. Tell her I am seven minutes 

away, and I will see her in her dreams.

Tell her that there’s people standin’ on top 

other people and we’re almost outta 

room, tell her be glad she got there in time.  

Tell her about that how that tree’s grown, stiffer

than a bone and all the time droppin’ rich,

pulpy leaves and doin’ better than we’d 

have had it doin’.  Tell her she, too, done 

better than I could have.  Tell her that when 

sea otters fall asleep, they hold hands 

with their partners, so they won’t float apart.

Tell her from here, them otters look like those 

little candles we seen on the island, 

bobbing and burning slowly.  Now, I can

remember better than ever: anxious, 

too-soon things alight, bright among hundreds 

of swaying others, tethered loose enough

to account for the elastic troughs yanked 

back and forth by the indifferent moon.