Poetry from Adrian Louis

This is how a poem means, goddamnit. From Toe Good Poetry

In those years of your dying

I remember our little green

desk lamp, its chain broken

so it had to be turned off & on

by twisting the bulb in its socket.

Sometimes it went off by itself

& we’d be engulfed in the dark

poverty we were born into.

That was how I wanted it to be

when your breathing stopped.

Quick, painless, silent, poor.

That is how I wanted it to be.

I wanted to be unable see

your face & then I could lie

& tell myself I was too old to

be afraid of the dark, too old

to fear Satan’s python penis

splitting the atoms of our soul.

It’s been six years since you left.

I sit beside myself, brought here

to these Midlands of the mundane

by the shibboleth of the Chevrolet.

In the oncologist’s waiting room

there are little green desk lamps

just like the one we had, but these

do not flicker like my health &

the health of all in this room

seem to be doing this morning.

Across the room an old coot

with solid black eyes blinks at me.

Death smiles from the blackness.

Death is dancing in his skull.

Black bats flutter out from

his eyes & infect any hope

we might carry.