Letter to a Lost Lover
One Week After Halloween, Three After My Birthday. . .
There’s too much weather in my head.
These are the words I keep thinking
as I wake each morning to news reports
of floods and death.
Houston.
If we’re not
boiling, we’re drowning. Today I ventured
outside to dispose of last week’s
jack-o’-lantern before trash pick-up.
Oh, Jack was so gone.
I found him out there, dead
and decomposing. He was even more
scary today than on his big night:
toppled over to one side, mold
spreading across his fangs and features.
As I lifted him bugs flew out
from his extinguished eyes and his jaw
broke off in my hands. He’s falling
apart; I’ve left him too long.
Half his head remains in its place
in the mud. I think there may be maggots
underneath, so I’ve left it.
In the mail, I got
your package today, wet, worn,
a now belated birthday gift.
It finally found its way to me
by forwarding address. But how
strange a gift: an old borrowed
CD, finally returned,
The Best of Shirley Bassey–and it really
is the best because it includes
both Never Never Never and
I (Who Have Nothing) and,
on the cover, Shirley is wearing
some kind of feather boa-wrap
with lots and lots of pink feathers
all around her face. Her head
is almost lost among the feathers,
and yet her mouth emerges, wide
in song, reminding me of what
this town needs:
a little
glamour,
a little
less weather
no more forces of nature.
You have not left a return
address on this package. For my birthday,
you’ve given me your letting go.
You have now returned to me
everything that was mine already.
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