Brian Tierney
YOU’RE THE ONE I WANNA WATCH THE LAST SHIPS GO DOWN WITH
Dr. Redacted will tell me notthis, like ,in a poem: how it’s all right, love, that we don’t loveliving. Even actors don’texactly love the spotlight they move through,as your sister, the actor,has told us; they just need to be litfor narrative motionto have meaning. As such it iswith artifice and embarrassmentthat I move through fearto you, tonight, where I had dreams,a short nap ago, about linesof poetry I struck throughwith everyday blues, month aftermonth, in dreamafter dream; an attemptI guess to forget, if I could: defeatsometimes is defeatwithout purpose. The news, at least, tells methat much. I know now,in fact, we don’t have to be brave,not to survive a nightlike any we’ve looked ontogether, seeing blue-tinted snowonce in a Kmartparking lot’s giant, two-headed lamp—and my father hooked up,up the street, with no chanceof waking—as many years ago nowas how much longer I’ve livedwith you than without.Forgive me, again, that I write you an elegywhere a love poem should be.
