Bali
Life is just another method
of payment. You want to go back to Maine,
Indian farmboy in this big city, have your mother
spoon out comfort—
potato soup and baked yams—
talk to Grandpa about the iron plate
nailed to his brain during the war,
the vats of pig's blood outside the barn.
In four years, seven friends
committed suicide. This week another,
coming home for the holidays,
dies, the wide winter roads too slick
to hold his car in place. In Maine,
even the blueberries
and lobsters are stunted
by cold. After you left, forty people
followed you to California.
Now, the city's four corners are closing in.
It is Sunday and you are tired of fighting.
You tell me you want to go to Bali
where the day's most important event
is eating a big wedge of melon
against the haze of temples and smoky greens.
I sit in your room, know why
comfort can be as easy
as a trigger. In the three days since your friend's death,
you've covered every corner with your sculptures—
a blue baby hemorrhages on the table, rose and thorns
sprouting from his appendix, and a sperm angel
hangs, shaking from a clothes line.