Joshua Keiter

It is enough to know you are not living
through this episode even though
you died not long after it had begun

enough to begin with the thought of
how prescient the idea of living without
breath was even for one more day

enough to remember your handwriting
your strings your attachments your voice
stirring the empty porch light night air

enough to keep some aspect of you
alive in the thoughts of my own each day
even if thinking cannot bring you back

enough to say I wish I could say to you
you are entirely and completely enough
that you could hear even if it remains unsaid

except on this page and in the way
I keep waking knowing you are not there
even in the unknowing it is never enough

My mind all day
has been trying
to remember

dreams from
the night before
but they vanish as

soon as identified
not unlike
the moment when

you wake up
after a nightmare
struggling for air

trying to scream
and instead
for dear life itself

you wake up

Look at us all standing around here
in this ordinary nightly dream
involving food in public places
huddled together against the cold and dark
breathing the same unfiltered air
exchanging words through vocal cords
not pixelated catastrophe squares
wrapping our minds around
what’s become of this place
since we left it go to wrack and ruin
no one does the lawns anymore
we’re cutting our own bangs
because no appointments are available
and we’ve each become experts
at growing our own yeast in jars
for some godforsaken unknowable reason
as if the infestation at the root
of the problem suddenly became incurable
as if someone didn’t sit down at a table
with their so-called friends and said
all are welcome here in this place
including these pestering dreams of mortality
reaching for the right ingredient
at the wrong time and space
I never thought my waking horror daydreams
would ever come to pass that I would
be stuck inside with only screens for comfort
while outside unimaginable scenes unfolded
with no one to witness and adjust or drive the car
no one standing outside the window
with a screen in their hands and mask
on their face as the only goodbye
these people will ever know in this life
cut short even though it lasts so very long
so long dear friends fellow travelers so long
we’ll meet again when our bodies
are no longer made of dust or wind
just light and silence so loud it breaks through
we will embrace in the end I have to believe
these molecules can only be apart so long

As sure as midnight follows dawn
we are born with the sadness
of generations untold

not because the trauma of living
is passed through genetic code
or microorganisms teeming

with false equivalences
and smiling angry faces
that distort the story of everyone

who has a mother only
to be about who wins in the end
of a zero sum game with no rules

I’d like to think these tales get told
only on account of the boredom
of repetition and waking up

on the wrong side of the bed
for thousands of years thankfully
one day when the waking

stops only to discover a different
kind of awakening one that never
has to begin with sleep after all isn’t it

like that with those games
you used to play as a child
when all you could think of

as things didn’t go your way
and all your friends disappeared
over the hills as the sun set

you shouted out to no one
in particular—
Do Over

The thin line dividing
what we were from
who we are is

getting thinner all the time
see how familiar songs
echo from living room

windows bouncing
off our frayed minds
as if to say we will

remember you who
sit there catlike and tonic
referring to the moon

in small doses of
the month that afters May
but follow me to

this river underground
where all our journey’s
end and try to figure

out what we are singing
above the dogs barking
and videotapes rewinding

back to this bridge
in seconds and reverse
recoiling and recall

a place of stasis
that says you are home
wherever you are not

and whenever you are