jonberger

"He photographs puddles," she said.
"He’s really good."
I nodded. She continued.
"Occasionally, he sells a picture
and it’s a big windfall
but the art world is capricious
so he doesn’t always make rent."
"Sure," I said.
"Sometimes," she added,
"he needs some help
during rough times.
That’s where I offer
some additional support."

"You pay his bills?"
I asked.
"I help him out,"
she corrected,
"So that he can follow his muse
when the puddles come out."
"Aren’t there puddles, like,
most of the time?"
"Not in a drought,"
she said.

"So you support him,"
I said,
"You let him keep up
the artistic lifestyle
so he can go out
when he wants
and look for the wet spot
and take the money shot.
Got it, sugar mama."

We didn’t talk for a while after that.
Our conversations went through
a kind of dry spell.

It’s OK to talk to people
in the room that you don’t know.
It’s all right.
They won’t mind.

If you smile at a stranger
there is the faintest possibility
the stranger might smile back.
In New York
the possibility is faint
but there’s a good chance
that like you
they’re from out of town.
Nothing ventured,
as someone once said
– and he, too,
was not a New Yorker.

You can try anything.
You can dream anything.
You have the potential to do anything.
Take as many of these words
as you wish.
Some of them may work.

You didn’t give me a chance
to fuck things up
– and I would have.
I would have
badly.

It would have been a car wreck
of tremendous proportions,
but you didn’t know that.

You didn’t have the experience
to know the kind of atrocity
I can get up to
with an hour and an opportunity.
You just took a look
and made a judgement
and you know what that is?
That’s prejudice.

And yes, that prejudice
would very likely
– almost certainly –
have been borne out by the reality
but you owed it to me
and yourself
to have seen what we could be.
You get that, right?
You see how you shortchanged our future, right?

Now, I’d be willing to give you another chance
and forsake all that I’ve got going for me
at the penal colony if
– well, let me know.
Just –
you’ve got my info.

All right, just
you need to listen to me.
It’s kind of important
that you give me a few minutes
to get my point across.
You’ve been avoiding me
and I get it.
I do.
I understand how I’ve been acting lately
but if you just give me three minutes
– two –
I think I’ll be able to make a compelling case
as to why it’s worth your time
to give me two more
and two more after that
and then maybe three more
and you might see where I’m going with this.

So
so
so do you think I can get two minutes of your time?
Just two minutes
one hundred and twenty paltry seconds
to review the past eight days
and consider what went into them
and what we might be able to do
to go forward
without so much awkwardness between us.
Is this possible?
Is this conceivable?
Is this something we could work out?

One twenty?
All right.

First,
let me apologize
for the forty thousand cherries
currently in your apartment.
I was wrong to deliver them.
Second,
you were wrong
about everything else.
Allow me to explain –

Some nights
in the back
in the basement
next to broken floorboards
and mouse droppings
and the sounds of traffic insinuating
into your thoughts
when all you want
are pleasant dreams
or a few moments of quiet respite
you might come to realize
that the only way
you will be heard
is if you shout
but if you’d have to shout
perhaps it wouldn’t really be worth
the breath to speak it.

Of course
those nights in question
are solitary
and filled with boundless noise
so no shout would elicit any change
at all
so
there’s that.

No, it’s not a big deal.
It was just an old bike.
Just an old bike
that I had for years
since my youth
that I used
to ride to school
and afterwards to work
and back again in the morn.

That bike served me well for years
and when you said
you wanted to get fit
I thought it might help you too
and figured the two of you
would do so well together
I guess I neglected to ask
about the relationship.
I guess that’s on me.

I should have checked
to see how you were getting along.
I should have verified
that you weren’t moving too fast
that you guys were gonna last.
I should have sensed it,
I guess, when you decided to throw out
my old friend
because you didn’t like the color
or the sounds it made
or whatever it was you just said
while the blood in my ears
made it fairly hard to hear.

I hope you have found some other way
to stay healthy
and your heart rate is keeping up.
I shall be seeing you soon
and I expect we’ll be testing
your aerobic capacity shortly
to its limit.

You were your mother’s son
and a fine brother
and had a strong relationship to animals.

You were a community leader
who cared for his people
for years
during quite tumultuous times.
You did what you could
and you did quite a lot.

Not everyone would agree with you
but you didn’t shy away from a fight
or two.
In that way
you were brave.
Certainly, you were willing
to hew your own distinct path.

You’ve been an inspiration
for so many
and your thoughts live on
to this very day.
On your birthday
may your candle burn hot
and long
for you
forever.

I am not the one to be touched.
I have made this so
over years of active inattention to physicality.
I spend my days in avoidance of contact
all for the purpose of protection.

It works like this:
when one does not wish to touch me
– and why would anyone? –
I shan’t ever feel rejected
for none will ever have gotten past
my constant defense.

This plan
has been executed flawlessly
for years and years
and years
and years
and I watch as people I have introduced
hug and kiss before me
and bear children
before my eyes.

The system has worked
somewhat beyond expectations.
The safety I’ve insured has surely maintained my health
from a thousand cuts
and kept me hardy in the face of all the wilting rejections I have so far missed.
I am stronger, no doubt,
from all that I have deflected.
All the hugs I am saved from,
all the kisses in my rear view…
certainly I am safe now.

Perhaps it is time
to finally lower the guard
and allow a bit of touch,
if only once.
Is it safe yet?
Do I dare?

.

Adam and Steve just hanging around that garden
fucking like nobody’s business
because it’s not
and really there’s nobody around to judge
except some smaller critters
and they only talk occasionally
after nibbling on some specific restricted fruits.

Stephen and Adam just while away their countless hours
lolling around the compound
killing time
inventing new sexual acts
defining deviance every dawning day
It’s an exciting adventure every gay time.

One of those afternoons
a giant caterpillar
after digging into the fruit
of the tree of knowledge,
thus gaining human speech,
spills the beans on the tree’s undisclosed location
so the private couple
(affectionately known in the trades as “Stam”)
head off and chomp on what looks suspiciously like an apple, but whatever.

Soon after,
they ask for a meet & greet
with the big boss.
God comes down to chat,
and full of fruit and fire,
Steve says, “How come we’re not in your image?”
God shrugs, thinking the humans would have preferred immortality to procreativity
but she’s nothing if not flexible.

She pivots on the fly,
switches Steve all up into a woman
(with a concomitant name change),
and gives them both the ability to make life and death,
like her.
Sort of.

‘Course, they messed with the order of things,
so they gotta get the fuck out of Dodge,
which is the garden,
which was home,
so they keep on trucking
and they keep on fucking
for a long while after
until they get pregnant
at which point
they don’t know what the fuck hit ’em.

When things get hot
glaciers melt
into smaller ice mountains
which quickly dwindle
into chunks
which speedily fall
into the sea
as drowned ice cubes
all their own.

When the heat is on
you just gotta stay chill
keep cool
and stay together.
Keep your head above water
lest you lose all.