Joshua Keiter

This afternoon
I woke from my nap
and listened to

one of the few
trusted historians
in this timeline

discuss the history
of voter disfranchisement
(hint it goes way back)

while pictures appeared
in the same timeline
of people standing

humans with breath
and kindness to spare
keeping their distance

in lines too long to fathom
with masks as protection
the historian ended

her talk with hope

Today on our walk
the silence of the streets
was so striking

it resembled
the cloudless sky
overhead

we noticed the buds
springing from the trees
nothing could stop them

a blanket abandoned
on a fallen tree branch
with almost apparent care

at the other side
of the forest
a bride was there

at least in dress walking
with a cameraman
planning photographs

for some undetermined date

Speaking with you
through this tunnel
is not unlike passing

through an art gallery
a marriage of absence
as if every picture

lost its frame or
reference being
the blank space

creeping into vision
either a new guest
or just a name

a ghost memory
me waiting by the window
for you to appear

only to watch you drive away

It cannot be enough
this question of grace
asked before or after

in the middle of things
the face unknown
as required of being

difficult now to tell
the difference between
daylight and moonlight

as the hours rise and
the seconds lengthen
we wait for beginnings

to end once again

Every night I’m having
the kinds of dreams you have
when there’s not enough

stimulation in the day
conversations with old friends
new and old plays to rehearse

houses to move in and out of
all contribute to this nightly
lethargic dance of synapses

as if to say you haven’t lived
enough so here is my offering
and whatever you remember

in the morning as you start to move
will linger through the day
when you see far more

pixels than human faces
on the screens that fatigues us all
and this ghost echo reverberating

in your eyes nose ears and throat
will be there still waiting for you
when you come back to life in time

resting your head to fall asleep with

There is a way in which
when the wind is blowing
so much you cannot breathe

you wonder what it is
or who that makes you
breathe at all as if

you could remember
your first breath after
the trauma of birth

we change consciousness
before we even know
we are conscious

and out in the bare frame
of existence we choke
ourselves awake not only

for the first time but
the time after that
and the time after that

Really all we can do once
the train is set in motion
is watch it go by

no use climbing aboard
since you are already there
and anyway the landscape

around you keeps changing
at least it did at first
now there is just

this glass resting at last
in the window frame
as if it was almost breathing

I wish I could say
that when this is all over
we will know that it is over

that all our friends will be
back together if not
gainfully employed

that when we cross the street
it will be because we want
to get to the other side

that we will realize we were
going wrong in so many ways we will
never make the same mistakes again

that a new skin will develop
over the old scars
even the new scars will heal

that realistically speaking
even one life lost is too much
in the face of the avoidable

that we will have flattened
not the globe but the curve
and the earth is still standing

that the air will not just seem
cleaner or the grass greener
here on the other side

not just because it turns out
we have burned out and burned out
and burned out and burned out

and now even the bridges are
collapsing all around us
see this plume of dust rising

and as the sun breaks behind
an approximation of a cloud
and as we weather the storm

if not the changes we will
be able to say I wish these were
the things I did not have to say

because they have all been said
and repeated again and into
the silence over and done

even in the face of the camera
we never noticed before
reflecting the light no one ever sees

until there is nothing
unprecedented
left to say

I wish I could say this but I can not

I can only hope
That when I said I love you
After you said if you walked 
Into the church
It would burn to the ground
That when you took the needle
And your consciousness left you
That love was waiting there
To embrace you in their arms 
Like I barely could
You seemed so distant
The last time I saw you 
And the pictures they post 
With smiles so frozen and static
I have to believe
That love breaks through
And burns all our frailties 
Along with everything else
That breathes goodbye
To the ground of our being
Which is love—

When the heat dissipates as it almost surely never will
On this gutted broken blasted out shell of what we used to call the earth
When the last humans stop torturing the soil with leaf blowers and rakes alike
In this understated oversaturated season of mellow fruitfulness
When all life is reduced to dust that might accumulate after millennia
Into tangled pillars of bioluminescent gas never resolving itself to sun
When all pinpricks of light staining the black dome above our heads
Out of the mouths of babes restrained in nylon belts on hospital beds
When you wake up and everyone knows you are mad with Ativan delusions
In the spaceship you inhabit alone forsaken at the end of the universe 
When all hope left in memory is erased waking up scared she committed suicide
Only to find a text years later knowing she’s dead and you’re alone
When you find words you never realized you committed only just months ago
In that moment you begin writing a poem again

When I thought
Or when my mind was thinking 
That every single living
Human being was immortal 
And perishing because 
Of my sin my grievous sin
My most heinous grievous sin
Like teaching the Beat Generation
Instead of coherent thesis statements
And not correctly patrolling 
The Russian computer hacking
In the back of my empty classrooms 
I never could remotely imagine 
That the worst loss was still to come
That my hallucinating your suicide 
Would come to pass within a year 
Of the fever breaking or that 
We would come to know each other’s flesh
In the meantime all that I ever wanted 
I wanted to return to the spirit of your flesh 
To turn in bed and find my face 
Kissing your neck your ear until 
All our clothes displaced we came 
Together but flaccid and exhausted 
We retired to the porch to smoke 
And I told you I loved you in your ear 
And you said you hardly know me 
But I knew that I loved the you 
I didn’t know you fast asleep in the bathroom 
Maybe dead only a few weeks later 
And you were dead and my insides 
Turned inside out all the paranoia 
Of six months on seroquel and fear 
And apocalyptic doubts redoubled their efforts 
To pull me away from the love I knew in you 
That I knew you imparted your daughter 
That I knew outlives us in death 
When I placed the dirt on your grave 
I knew I would see you again 
And now every day I do again in different ways 
Just that love continues on and on 
Though you cannot could not hear me say it 
I love you and will to the end of time 
Which happened so many times 
Only I wish I could have prevented it
Happening in you I love you Rachel I do 
And god loves you too god loves you I love you
I love you Rachel I love you I love you