Ode to the Places I’ll be Without You

 
Your space is empty.
There is no voice to hold my quiets anymore.
Lately, I have been reading your poetry word by word,
                  mouth bending slow and voiceless so I hear you speak.
Phantom limb disorder — I feel like you are still next to me, when you’ve left so long ago.
                                   I love you.
Mornings fade into afternoons into nights into mornings — time is a tributary, you are the widenings.
I will forget the pale sunlight out the window showing untainted colors of gifts — or memories
These walls with graffiti are hollowing — our marks are being covered — something about selfish memories —
there are pockets of still air that once rang with music.

*

Scenic Route

 
I am in Noah’s car going 60 on Main Street. We play
                Autreche and Dolly Parton.
       Workin’ 9 to KRRRRRRRRRR
Dolly is workin’ til the sound of her typewriter cracks
                turn to the car we swerved past. I think about writing this poem
beat by beat. Every word alive. I can’t count
algorithmic noise. BEEP. Gene tells me to stop switching
                songs every 30 seconds. I decline. Noah’s phone declines my fingers.
How dare. I turn it o and turn it on. e password is 0088. The song is electric fruit.
                                Sunny, with a chance of
80 Fahrenheit. What a way to make a living. I wish.
Noah slams the gas and we hurtle to the hills. I wish.
                Noah is floating, and so is his Hyundai. I wish.
It’s a flood. We are all the kinds of animals in the world. I wish.
                I change the song to Gene. He tells me “keep me”.
The song plays, we are punctually alive: Every muted thud of piano keys: heartbeats in time.
                This little Toyota                                 floats
                                and it rained for 40 seconds and 40 seconds. I wish.
we are all the kinds of world: Noah, Gene, Me. I kiss the window.
                The rain presses itself into little pecks before my lips.
                                Gene is the song and he changes to Beastie Boys.
                                                Rain is all the heartbeats
                                of the animals in the world. Us. I wish.
                Gene’s music taste is non-algorithmic noise. Everywhere,
baby! Beautiful. For 40 seconds we are awake in a blaring storm.
Noah’s honda crashes into a blue whale. It sings a little, cries a
                                                little. Ma Rainey plays through the clouds. You can’t tell the difference
                                                                when the sun goes down.
                Gene twists his fingers into 808s. He always was a breakdancer. Noah tells me
he had Eskimo blood but not anymore because Eskimo is a slur. His hair only grows thicker, not longer.
We workin 5 till we, all the animals of the world, live on.

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