Echo II

I saw you

Across the narrow gravel road

I saw you

Remember that? Of course you don't.


You can't remember anything anymore

I am standing and the ferry is pulling away I am standing and yet I want to lie down I am standing and yet I know that you are I am standing and yet the factories are gone I am standing and yet there is nothing to stand for anymore

I am standing

Seeing you, Cynthia, seeing you there you are wearing that dress that I say I bought you but you say no get the fuck outta here you didn't buy shit it was your aunt Cecile who bought it and I say fuck no that is not true and we are laughing as John says he wants to buy you a castle John says he loves you John says too much but we don't care anymore or at least you don't or I don't or something like

It is all coming down now

Around us

It is all coming down

We have lost you know you know you have lost when we have lost and you are at the meeting and the brothers and sisters are saying maybe we gotta take those concessions but you know those concessions won't change anything we have been making them for thirty fucking years since I was a kid but I really didn't get it then I don't get it now but I am running out of breath I am running out of time I am

You are laughing presents at Christmas you clapped with joy when I bought that and Chris is playing by the window snow and turkey and mashed potatoes and wine and whiskey with your dad and we are throwing snowballs at each other and you are laughing remember that remember laughing I don't but we are in the back yard in the snow and your brother is throwing the football and we are young and we are happy

Cynthia

What do we say to each other now

What can we say

The slipstream of memory carries away everything that was good and just leaves us here I see that sign at the end of Seventh St. and it says that we are building but we are not really are we and the layoff notices came and my locker felt like an angry wormhole with them saying we had to take all of those decades and get the fuck out and I don't want to get the fuck out I know all these people but that doesn't matter why would it matter

I am getting old I tell Cynthia and she knows that because we are all getting old getting old together getting old lying down getting old as it all just washes over us getting old but I never expected to get old like this thrown out are you throwing me out too or is it just the company

Standing at the wall the food truck there ham and cheese and coffee and the bowling nights and the drinks at the Goose and the burgers at Mike's and the trucks heading down Birmingham and the bosses saying they are taking it all away

Cynthia I can never forget us at city hall and the rings I can never forget the jacket I can never forget

Cynthia I

Cynthia I

The playground is empty now stale with memories that reverberate that are hollow that are nothing but specters that haunt my sleep

We were there

I know we were

Cynthia were we there?

Chris is running up the stairs and he is smiling and then he is crying and he is five years old and he is reaching out taking my hand and he is wondering daddy are we really going to die I will miss you if you die and I am trying to tell him that the dead can't miss anyone but maybe they can maybe he is right maybe he understands

Maybe the dead can miss things

Maybe the dead

I don't really want to be dead but I am not sure I care that much I am not sure I am not already dead I am not sure of any of that I laugh and he knows

Cynthia brings the bottle to the pool

Adam is sitting legs in the water but that can't be right that can't be right because Adam

Cynthia puts the bottle down and smiles

Watching the flag flying in the wind at the front of the garage I got up there and put that flag up holiday 2006 I put that flag up so proud I never wanted to take the flag down our country

How many times standing for that anthem how many days passing how many baseball games track meets football tackles that mark the years how many championships and who cares now

I will see you there Cynthia

I know I will find you

Somewhere out across that narrow gravel road

Echo