In the manner of Jim Carroll

Distress was her middle name
so we used it sparingly
in the morning sleeping off the shots of rye
that got us through the planning sessions
and the snow
that carpeted the roads the week after Easter,
the silence of the side chapel
where revolution was the incense
of discovery,
the prayer card to steady the needle,
nights at the Halogen Lounge
committing ourselves to bands
that perfected the art
of trying
too hard.

You later told me that you made
an exception for me
because we called each other comrade without affectation,
because I agreed without hesitation
to take photos of the Custom House
from the roof across the street,
and to learn the code
we used to write notes
on the inside jacket of books we would leave
beneath a stool
behind the library shelves
where we first made love
as if abandonment were the misplaced monopoly piece,
our new target.

I waited about two months
before going back after they hosed down
the sidewalk where the flowers and drawings
had hidden almost everything
except the very act of remembering.
Packaging always meant a great deal to you,
the contraband of indiscretion
by which I mean
the pout of the potted hydrangea
you left on the porch
and the glass prism in its own leather case
a gift from your father
found by your pillow that morning after you lit out
which brings us to the seventh realm of wonder,
by which I mean
the price of refraction
that you paid up in iridescence.

# # #

Christopher T. Keaveney teaches Japanese and Asian Cultural Studies at Linfield College in Oregon. His poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Spoon River Poetry Review, Columbia Review, Cardiff Review, Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, Stolen Island, Faultline and elsewhere, and he has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He is the author of the collection Your Eureka Not Mined (Broadstone Books, 2017).

Photo:  Monika Schröder