we invisibles

Yellow grass tickles sky
the beach is empty and open
invisibles watch their lawns grow
they call this a town.

I think through a letter.
This guy emailed me seven years ago
re: Hey there big Brain
I was moved to respond
to this childhood friend.

The shades of boys he taunted
drew near. I paused
for seven years.

Bucky deserved it least.
His squirrelly limbs outclimbed me
Chayse, I just looove chayse he’d say
in the voice of Pepe Le Pew’s amor
his hair was bushy
his mom alone
we crawled into the ventilation tunnel
under the chapel one Sunday
his name was J.P. for Jean Pierre
he liked Suzie Himmelberg
to her vast embarrassment.

Bucky snapped once. I remember
the slap. church lawn. white that face. lips purse.

Jean Pierre only responded
to my first letter. “I don’t have
fond memories of Connecticut,
with some exceptions of course.”
It was typed.
He taught Tae-kwon-do in Pennsylvania.

Maybe my letters helped him
bury this place
of invisibles of which I too
am one: there are no exceptions
to the spectralizing air
of property values.

I like the ex-bully working in
a bank in Boston. Will my
letter soothe something in him?
Let our sameness be known?

When he thinks of me,
does he see Bucky
as I see when I think of him?
When Jean Pierre thinks of
me, does he see that whitening face?
Does it matter that I hated it too?

Yellow grass rustles on the sky.

June 15, 2007