For John Unrau
in memory of Eric
i.
You have become a black skeleton with flesh,
a burnt out stick of coal
in a diaper. The scent of urine mingles with death’s potpourri
for you have wet yourself yet again.
Where did your substance go? Burned off from hours of chemo
no doubt, the vibrant skin that once held life is now folded,
like your body, mirroring your worried brow
Huddled in the corner of a cot, in fetal position,
you have your back to me.
Do you even know that I am here? Do you care?
Nurse Rosie comes in with your evening dose of pills
carrying a transparent checker board calendar case
with your daily regiment
and a glass of water. Very hard to swallow
seeing you like this; like blood you have stuck to me in my trials
now I know that I will bury you.
Nurse touches your shoulder and you turn
“Richard time for your medicine.”
There is still motion in those bones;
much less flesh for them to carry now.
But your soul is heavy.
Dark clouds are poised over your head. Acid rain
has poisoned your eyes so that now they sit in your head
like hardened sapodilla seeds, dry, brittle and waiting to crack.
Total silence is your policy.
I’ve been coming here for weeks waiting for a word
to fall from your lips like a stone
that I could catch with my two hands
and polish into a paper weight.
But you never even look at me.
You take the pills one by one,
your throat agitates the water,
and I imagine they go somewhere.
There is no stomach that I can see,
perhaps it just passes through to the pampers
and gives the nurse something to do.
ii.
Remember when we said that death was nothing to fear?
We were the brave fishers of men,
you the rusty headed sailor
and I, the new sparkplug,
your protégé. We speaking in tongues and raising the sick
pounding our bibles like we did the pavement,
wearing out our shoes
and the heathen’s ear in the same breath.
We were the missionaries
wearing our privilege as proud as any company man could.
Our policy was spoken in durable terms, an indelible contract
written in our own blood, so strong was our faith!
We believed.
We moved mountains for breakfast with our grits and butter
and daily peered into paradise
picking out lots for future possession.
We smiled when deprived for we knew
that the master above saw and would reward.
Counting the hours of the day when we spoke His name
like holy accountants,
for we knew God’s truth better than Moses ever did
and fire filled our bones with zeal for the master’s house.
Death was a joke for us;
we who stored our treasures in heaven,
and any who thought different were of a lesser calling,
they were made of lesser stuff.
Lesser than we who put our own flesh on the alter
to show we meant business.
Now.
Now that Death sits in the chair
in the corner reading the Thursday paper.
Now that his presence fills my lungs like napalm
and my skin burns at his every breath
I find that I can not say those magic words.
All of the books and talismans have turned to wax
and have lost their power
All of the advice of the prophets that I parroted so eagerly
now feels as hollow in my mind as a wind chime
knocking about in the smoke of a funeral pyre.
My God, My God, why have you bamboozled me?
iii.
There is a knock at the door, and a head peers in
through the crack,
your ‘fleshly’ sister, and double in the faith,
herself veteran of many a crusade
she who tag teams with Rosie,
taking turns to wipe you clean of pride
“Rick, Brother and Sister Jacobs want to see you…”
You barely look, but the almost audible sound of your suck-teeth
communicates a profound disgust.
The head disappears again,
and we can hear the muffled excuses being offered
like candy to calm down kids.
Treat them kindly for they have position.
They were once your good friends
and they have traveled far to pay last respects.
But they are married, and thus, are the enemy.
You only allow your single friends,
admittedly not many now,
the pleasure of seeing you die.
I hear you suck your teeth again.
Perhaps it’s nothing against them personally
but perhaps it is the thought of what might have been.
I think of all the women, good church sisters all,
who wanted you
who would give the world now just to clean up your vomit
who would have wallowed in your urine
to sleep on the floor by your bedside,
just to have felt what it was to know a man.
But you were too righteous for such things.
Paul and the ever-virgin Jesus were your models.
You told me so many stories about sisters
who would send you messages
encoded in body language, asking strange favors
just to linger in your presence
to pass your way,
to catch your eye,
to get close enough for you to smell them
in the hope
that their perfume might awaken some forgotten instinct.
But women were only a distraction and temptation to sin,
so you stayed single,
married the Lord,
deadened your body members,
slept alone
and I, seeing you as a modern day messiah,
tried to follow.
But I was always weaker.
I still looked with lust. Trembled at night with desire.
I grew to fear talking to beautiful women
lest I snap under the strain.
The church, for its part,
lovingly closed off all options for release.
Masturbation was sin.
A first step in the wrong direction.
So I prayed for forgiveness from wet dreams,
every erection became a trial
and a sign that I had failed in my training.
Private thought was sin.
I daily scrubbed the lewd graffiti
off of the walls of my mind
that multiplied even as I cleaned,
even as I killed every flirtation,
every desire,
I was losing the battle.
Guilt was tattooed on my genitals,
and I hated my imperfection.
You made being a eunuch look so easy.
And now after all these years
to find out your secret wish.
You, who I thought had exorcised the demon of desire,
wanted a woman, a wife, maybe even child.
You sigh deeply,
your head still turned to the wall,
covered in shadow.
iv.
This disease travels like a snake in your family tree.
Not so long ago you were the caretaker,
the hero who never needed help
never stopping for air.
Not so long ago it was your father.
Since you had never left home,
you were the first choice for his nurse.
And you wanted the job.
Not long before that it was your mother,
and you took care of her too
How much should one man take on alone?
You became legend.
The faithful would call your name in wonder.
Before sunrise you made your fathers breakfast
and changed his diaper
then went out into the mission to help the heathens see Christ
all before you went to your office job by nine, always on time.
Lunch hour would find you giving Dad a fresh wipe and diaper,
and cleaning up whatever was spilled on the floor and feeding him
before you were back talking to angry customers till five
then into the field you went again with joy,
for the harvest was great,
nightfall would find singing
while you rubbed your father's skin in oil
probably after you preached your prescribed sermon
and cared for the congregation
just as the rule book said that you should.
When did you sleep?
After years when he finally died
and you said the prayer at the graveside
you couldn’t cry.
You still stayed in the same house, entertained their ghosts,
and spent even more time proselytizing than before
And you took me in, I, a child who had left my parents
in search of the Lord, in search of understanding,
you gave me a home.
I wanted to be your clone,
to pour out my soul like wine for the faith and the flock, as you did
Now I sit with my head in my hands
impotent,
watching your last days slowly evaporate.
v.
Six months before they found the Trojan in your blood
You came to me with news. You were going to live differently.
You were moving.
Your boss asked if you wanted to manage a small out island office
and you were going to take the chance.
They could have sworn you would say no.
There was a church on the little island that would be so happy
for your expertise. Definitely not your main reason.
But all your life you had lived in the same house,
the same Nassau neighborhood,
forty-four years of tradition and memories
in that one place.
Of course that meant that you were leaving me,
but at least I could still call.
I could not comprehend the seismic move.
Why now? What had changed?
“I tired ah living my life for other people.
“This my time now.”
Now, of course,
this isn’t how you planned it.
This not-so-triumphant return to the same house,
the same Nassau neighborhood
keeping the family tradition
and way of dying
It is hard to take comfort
in those six months of independence
six months that should have started
twenty-five years sooner.
vi.
You tire of the wall and turn over,
in that moment I look into your eyes, and I try to smile.
I have nothing to say.
Neither do you.
But I see it.
Your eyes are like hollow wells that descend deep
into the abyss of your soul,
wells that haven’t seen water for so long that
vinegar beads up on their walls like sweat.
The spin doctors will sell your death to the faithful as a victory
they will say you received the reward of certainty into your palm
that you died and opened your eyes in paradise
joyous, having lived the life the way it must be lived.
But in your eyes I see the hell of their lies.
All of this time you spent feeding the sick and preaching the word
you did not want to see your own great hunger,
filling your belly instead with air cakes of doctrine,
filling your time with appointments,
chanting lines of salvation like code from a recipe book
but now the stench of foul gas cuts the tongue like a scythe.
The hunger is still there, but there is no more time.
And the hunger is for life.
To live.
To love.
To risk.
To find out now that the pearl of high price is made of plastic
is too much pain to bear.
You just close your eyes.
The half-smile on my face is frozen there.
I have just heard your confession,
I heard it in your eyes, as quiet as a thought,
and it has poisoned me.