long day's journey

We roll the lamp shade up

And the city is bigger than

The city is, all blinking lights

And river to water.

We are rocking out there in the waves.

“No sleep, not safe.”

Outside—the humidity mugs

Visitors one by one, turning them

To patients, borrowing moisture

From their eyes.

The lines have been blurred

Since I hopped in the car 3 days ago—booze sleep tears

I hit 120 masturbating to the sunrise--

That night was dark.

My grandfather had a stroke.

Shortest night of the year but couldn't quite

Get through it.

He taught me how to roll a room

With laughter, chew it like

Salt water toffee.

He produced sons who produced songs,

Anti-military, but growing right with

Money, he might have spat them out

His socialist mouth if he still had the energy,

But now it looks like it takes all that's left of his pectorals,

traps, and abs to alternate his

Heart beating and chest blooming.

I can see the muscles breathing heavy.

His eyes do two things: close.

Search for her,

flashing within artificial retinas over

objects without recognition –

undocked and motor running.

Unrecognizable his voice as it cracks

Like something of a shell, but she is there

Leaning close and the words come,

Each its own careful argument:

“Hey. Babe.”

This is the last time I see him.

When he thinks he is alone

He rasps into the phone

“I will beat this.”

And there is nothing to do but go,

because I will not pour my despair

into him. When I wrap my arms around

my grandmother, I can feel her flight,

like a caged bird,

like a woman watching the love of her life

fade. Then she stops and something erodes

for a moment, she releases and crumbles

like a clod of earth breaking loose

and disappearing into the sea—

then she hears it, the first sight of home,

a whisper of land:

hey. babe.