Member Poem

things that you can and cannot find in the refrigerator

open the door                         

not hungry

do a lap around the kitchen

overflowing garbage— ignore that

stack of mail— ignore that too                     

open the door again

stare at the bulb in the back—as if

a tunnel will appear

spiral toward you like a rickety funhouse maze

here it all comes! out will float:

the letter you’re trying to write

the superglue you’re sure you bought this time— no

it is not still in the trunk

answers to questions like are we just not speaking anymore?

the cap to your chapstick

the reason your mother’s tongue is bleeding

don’t think you’ll go back

to your bedroom and work—you  know  there’s just porn

and chocolate in there

one more lap around  the kitchen!

other things you won’t find:

a reason not to sleep

the message you’re waiting for        

less time

but what about               

a phone on the bottom shelf

that can call to your dead brother?

ask him what it was he meant to tell you that day

but didn’t –that day

you can’t stop remembering             

just too little of

the only things you can find are:

half a jar of oil cured olives

a mountain range of tomatoes covered in snow

an egg carton sawed in half with a bread knife

and pieces of shaved parmesan curled up for a nap

on a bed of wilted arugula

it would be a rotary phone—you could trace the dial with your finger

as it ripped back around to zero

you could transport through that tiny metallic clang

John would answer                  

then you could know

you could go back to the days

stoned teenagers standing together

with your heads in the freezer—laughing in the emerging fog

telling each other you were astronauts in space— but

John is not a helmet in the freezer

cannot be reached on a cold phone behind the butter dish

he is not even

jelly on asphalt anymore