By: Shane Veno
Warmth
When I piled about me 16 feet of dirty laundry
Landry and your train ticket stubs
Please don’t misunderstand my intentions
Tucson
she went to Tucson
The short haired desert shrew has no idea what winter will bring
Please don’t misunderstand my intentions
If he and I
both now
Could have known that
this time
Central light would cross the frost bracket
We wouldn’t have bothered feeding kin to kin.
I hoarded you
But we’re in the air
and I am having great difficulty divination
Where it is I am to burrow
If I had gone to Tucson
he and I
both now
Wouldn’t have bothered with all the burrowing
But alone again this time I haven’t bothered feeding
Alone again this time I haven’t haven’t haven’t can’t
spring
For my friend Elizabeth, who doesn’t live here anymore
Don’t visit at that lake of ennui,
saltless, shallow
Fit to drown but not to swim
Can I visit with you there?
vast, empty
Will you hold my hand through this?
Old Father Murphy, with his handkerchief of white, sepulcher of white
the lesion that was hers
the arrhythmia and unfortunate melody
You know.
You have stridden across the depths, are you smiling? Is it exquisite?
I cannot thole the thought.
Oh Ghede Nibo, draping black coat, violence of the mind
I’m ok, what’s your problem?
Long ears and my time-lapse memory, it was always more in the enfleshment than the flesh
Saint Friend, you’ve dropped us
Saint Friend, the noise won’t relent
Saint Friend, I cannot carry my body
I cannot thole the thought Saint Friend
Violet flowers, blue gown
Iron, unavoidable, dearest you
Shane Veno lives in Philadelphia, Pa. He has self-published several chapbooks and currently edits a zine collecting writing and art about Dysautonomia and EDS.
“The poem ("For my friend…") was written three months after my closest friend Elizabeth hung herself in her bedroom at home earlier this year. She didn’t die, not all the way, until a few months later, and I wrote the poem for her mother. Seong flew across the country to see me, and was searching, so frantically searching, but I had nothing to offer her. So I wrote her all of the emotions gathered around her daughter’s death, all of the guilt and shame and possible hopes and hoped it would be worth something to her.
If you’re familiar with Carl Adamshick’s work you'll recognize the references; one of my loveliest memories with her is passing a copy of Saint Friend back and forth over a table in West Yorkshire in the snow. Trading drags from poorly rolled cigarettes for strophes of wonderful verse, I can’t say how much I miss her.”
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