when parrots fly from his open mouth

as he tries to speak, repeating worthless,

worthless? I’m trying to love you

but I don’t know how, & then

I start to remember—we are locked together

& pushing, pushing.

Soft Radio

I don’t know if Ivan is dead & I don’t know

who to ask. Thin

the last time I saw him, yellow, the hospital

made him yellow. Percodan

made two of him,

one aching from the stitches, one

hovering above, whispering

it’s alright, it’s alright. Demerol

flattened the doctors into playing cards,

shattering

as they fell on top of him. Behind each—

outerspace, release. At 17: crystal

meth, we loved

the ring of it, like a girl’s

name, like a jewel. We stole candles

& a crowbar, tore

the plywood off a ruined beachhouse

to spend the night in a tilted room. We knew

what to take—marijuana

made the world small, a pinpoint, opium

left us in the shower, counting

tiles, valium liked to drive, liked

the red lights of traffic at night, the

heater off the window, the soft

radio. It

was easy: always a two-dollar coat

on Avenue A, you could always

sell your dog. Maybe Ivan

is still sweating, propped at his table

at Foley’s, nodding

though no one is talking. His loft,

a Pompeii, holes kicked in the plaster, he

pisses out the window

leaving long yellow icicles to dangle over the heads

of businessmen. On the train today

an advertisement—

a pill rising over New York like the sun,

like redemption, radiating, promising

a clear new day,

& the city again spotless,

the Statue of Liberty, perfect clouds, the water

all clear.

I don’t know if Ivan is dead. The same restlessness

walks a young man

through moving subway cars, toward

or away from someone he might love,

as a woman on the platform opens & closes

an umbrella, an enormous lung,

as a man rolls quarters between his fingers,

chanting anyone, anyone.

Residue

…he somehow takes it personally, as no one has ever taken color before, simply for making the object. The color is totally expended in its realization—there is no residue.

—Rilke, from Letters on Cezanne

Wedged between tiny desks I must be careful. If I ask

about the eyes

the braided girl will erase them

& draw another balloon-shaped head over the first,

holding her pencil like a hammer

she will color the body yellow

& the hands will be red. The shy girl

with the cleft palette

writes about being wheeled into a machine

that takes pictures of her bones. She spells picture like the thing

that holds milk

or the man who throws a baseball.

When she reads her draft to the class

everyone talks about when they got hurt,

I fell off my bike, my

brother got shot. … Christina’s book begins,

my mother comes home & all she wants is her coffee

& tv. She works

too much. Outside