WHAT IS THIS THING CALLED LOVE
Kim Addonizio

Death Poem
Do I have to bring it up again, isn't there another subject?
Can I forget about the scrap of flattened squirrel fur
fluttering on the road, can I forget the road
and how I can't stop driving no matter what,
not even for gas, or love, can I please not think
about my father left in some town behind me,
in his blue suit, with his folded hands,
and my grandmother moaning about her bladder
and swallowing all the pills, and the towns I'm passing now
can I try not to see them, the children squatting
by the ditches, the holes in their chests and foreheads,
the woman cradling her tumor, the dog dragging its crippled hips?
I can close my eyes and sit back if I want to,
I can lean against my friends' shoulders
and eat as they're eating, and drink from the bottle
being passed back and forth; I can lighten up, can't I,
Christ, can't I? There is another subject, in a minute
I'll think of it. I will. And if you know it, help me.
Help me. Remind me why I'm here.

Eating Together
I know my friend is going,
though she still sits there
across from me in the restaurant,
and leans over the table to dip
her bread in the oil on my plate; I know
how thick her hair used to be,
and what it takes for her to discard
her man's cap partway through our meal,
to look straight at the young waiter
and smile when he asks
how we are liking it. She eats
as though starving--chicken, dolmata,
the buttery flakes of filo--
and what's killing her
eats, too. I watch her lift
a glistening black olive and peel
the meat from the pit, watch
her fine long fingers, and her face,
puffy from medication. She lowers
her eyes to the food, pretending
not to know what I know. She's going.
And we go on eating.

Dear Sir Or Madam
This letter is the one you shouldn't open.
Or if you have, please don't read further.
It is going to give you terrible news.

Oh sir, or madam, we are strangers
but forgive me, I feel as though I love you
typing this on the forty-seventh floor

alone except for the man who cleans the carpets.
Forgive me if I grow distracted,
and think of my own burdens...

a wife's ashes, a boy who rocks back and forth
all day, and babbles nonsense. His photograph
and hers are on my desk; he doesn't smile.

The doctors test and test, then send
him to another. Maybe you, sir, or madam,
have felt a kind of helplessness at how things go?

I'm trying to finish this, to tell you
what I'm paid to tell you,
what I have stayed here late to compose

in just the right fashion, even if it takes
all night--the janitor has gone,
turning off all the lights. There's only my lamp,

and the quiet... My wife liked quiet. She liked
to hold me without either of us talking,
just breathing together. Sir,

breathe with me now. Madam, hold on to me.
There is news I must give you.
Let's not speak of it yet.
_________________________