Groundwork. Rustum Kozain

finding himself drawn life-large

      in the grudging cross hairs of white vandals;

      of brothers like eels slipping

      from nest to nest, their father’s sons.

      And your grandfather, the first man

      you loved; his agony

      that could do nothing but follow

      its male expression

      in the predictable fist, like my brother;

      your grandfather who taught you

      how to measure out beer in a moving car

      while he watched the road for cops.

      Man and granddaughter you hold

      to me, palms opening on what

      I imagine your own

      brief, bright kingdom.

      Then, an expletive of delight

      as you jackknife into that memory,

      come upright again.

      So night falls, you laughing,

      cross-legged in the driver’s seat,

      and dipping in and out of the years,

      reordering time until, unknown

      to you, a man’s eyes soften in your own

      and you too are a child again.

      In bed with Jimi

      I know I’m too young for this,

      him dead now forty years plus.

      I can’t help and lift the bedding,

      all of me trilling like an eel

      when he whispers to me.

      And then he’s here, long fingers

      like unequivocal gods,

      his lips like warm, despairing pawpaw,

      like two lines of despairing Baldwin

      and he stretches and strains.

      Then he’s arching against me

      but won’t let go of his guitar,

      his fucking guitar. But so, still,

      we make it. Slowly first

      we make it, and the worlds fade.

      All states of the world fade.

      On reading of Henry’s suicide

      As Henry finally moves himself to choose

      the knife, the gun, or an embankment,

      I get to where, impatient,

      I can light my cigarette.

      But I find at my dry, ashes’ end

      that Henry dawdles for a day or two.