Tethered

(c) 2008

Bone-deep spring-cleaning I uncovered a video
Margo lent several years ago—
when she remembered me—when I knew where she lived.
Bullworth; tripe I wanted, quickly, to return, but I got swamped.
We all do: work; mending marriages then breaking those fissures
utterly apart; psychoanalysis, late-life schooling—balancing
the turgid inward and outward gaze. Now it all seems
like commotion, a contrived list of excuses.

Two fusty cats, we lounged in the last patch of deck sun;
Fall encroaching—an unexpected yet not unpleasant guest.
I finished her sentences and she started mine.
We were each other’s favorite. Like hand mirrors.
Love-bound, not a homology. I mean,
Margo, like a mother-savior, fair and forgiving;
all my excess never let her down. I wasn’t her birth-her
troubled daughter; that woman never tired
of resenting Margo’s abandonment—
in and out of the state mental, preferring electro-shock
over her husband’s criticism and melt-downs.

As if they were alters overflowing with opulent offerings
to an undemanding goddess, Margo stuffed her studio shelves
with sea shells, feathers, photos of wolves and eagles,
small signed poetry chapbooks.
Any one of those artifacts would serve my homage better.
This video; I won’t watch it, won’t let it go.

But perhaps tonight’s pining has nothing to do with Margo.

I let nothing completely go. Maybe it’s a planetary misalignment,
maybe I’m not the only one resurrecting memories like ill-gained
treasures, suffering regret like tiny nails driven into my brain;
lately I’ve been running into lovers who’ve become strangers
whereas before they were estranged, or strange, who fell
into shadows, into the transient grasp of others. God damn!
I’m contemplating lips I haven’t kissed in thirty year
and for some reason tonight I want them all back. I want, truly,

to complete my deep-cleaning, to get these boxes of books,
knick-knacks, the cracked dishes and unused appliances out,
to create spaciousness for another arrival.
But arrival of what? The crates end up in storage
or chocking my already cramped studio because I want,
I want my closet bursting with my favorite dresses. Each one
felt like I was purchasing hope, or trying on a beauty
I never quite believed. I want the gray in my hair
to turn black, as though longing overtook and grew through me.
I want an insatiable Spring. It is almost inconceivable
that I have met my challenges, that I have the adoration of a man
who is kind and respectful and quiet and stable
as a table draped in checker-board vinyl and Melamine.
Where is the bite? Where is the gall, the indignation,
the turpitude I like to play with, then push away,
to make room for one more cold, calculated whim?

Margo, your cobby whelp packed you up and moved you
to assisted living somewhere on the Eastside
where you forgot me completely. When I was done with the lover
who helped me realize I was done with the marriage,
and when I completed the triple degrees, had exhausted the work,
unchained myself from my pursuits, when I was done with my solitude,
I tracked your number through a friend of a friend of a friend.
You said that I seemed like a nice person and could call again
though tracking my incomprehensible narrative wearied you.
I offered to write, send poems, some snippets and triggers.
You didn’t know your address, the city, even the name of your home.
I had the tether, Margo. I dropped it.

I still have this video you loaned me, Margo.
It wasn’t meant to be a good-bye gift.
The loan held no purpose beyond friends sharing.
I’d like to pretend, though, that the Universe wants me
to re-watch that Hollywood-hyped, star-studded drivel
and infer something valuable and meaningful. So be it:
Bullworth felt purposeless
and lacking balls—or personal accountability
he hired a hit-man. Knowing his days were numbered,
he gave himself permission to be authentic.
In authenticity, he found life worth living.
I’m almost afraid, Margo. Afraid that my authenticity lies
in being torn, where I want to be stripped stark of conclusion,
to rest not in potential, or its fulfillment, but in a disquieted, anxious world
where nothing every actually happens, is all conjuncture, all tension,
is devoid even of profound connection, and yet, where what I want
is to let life’s diurnal connection, integration, and separation,
like a meandering river shaping the fertile shore, shape me,
because I neither know how to hold on, nor how to let go.

(c) 2008