It is late and the sun will not be up
For hours yet. At my age dreams are more dull
Than fantastic. In that half trance of
The not asleep I reach for a book I
Read in school, hoping its famously long
Sentences lull me to sleep. And early
In his text he says good and evil we
Know in the field of this world grow up
Together, and are so mixed, it is hard
To tell one from another.

Was he listening? Did he hear my call
Last week? I phoned a friend of mine, someone
I had known for years, and for years she’d
Been sober. But not today: one of those
Calls you wish you had never made: sometimes
You lose just by trying. She is screaming
And raging and boiling. When her brother
Died a light went out and the room stayed dark:
As if death is a wake-up call and your
Phone never stops ringing.

It does not help that he killed himself, which
Her parents lied about, and he left no
Note, no final thoughts, no apologia
Pro vita sua for the vita he could
Not rid himself of fast enough. The booze
Makes her think she is coping but she is
Instead screaming to me about her rent,
Her parents, her landlord, the new mayor,
A hydro bill, and the chairman of North
Korea. A stew of misery.

A runner on her days off, ten miles
At a time or more, this she can’t outrun.
I wonder… if she goes to work Tuesday,
At Vichy, the godforsaken French bistro
She works at in Hollywood, will people
Notice her cassoulet of rage, resentment,
And hangover? But strangers are smoked glass
To us, thick; too late we learn that good means
How good they are to us. And evil
Just as far as we don’t care.

And too late we learn how little we know,
That all souls are blank slates unless you have
Been there on the good days, when the sun is
Up at six and on that day the light has
A way of never dying; and been there
For their bad days, when the sun waxes pale,
Weak, and hopeless, and your parents have called
To say they found your brother’s body… but
They don’t say the pills were pumped out too late,
And there was no note, nothing, and you have
The rest of time to wonder just where
He wandered to.