Failed Suicide, 1993

Her moans from the sunroom on south
grand first tracks of betrayal those cabins at
Allerton she looked on the young father
from west of the illinois and found
someone new to replace me she had
that list of boys/men―the farmer-poet
the chicano-liar, the jazz-drummer
―methedrine in his blood stream, the
saxophoner from food & money
singing about Argentina/“land of meat”
she sent him mash notes. Her spirals
composed of bitter, innocent stories,
her passions avoiding the real issue:
her father's religious requirement
to void the dark lust that lived like
a dead snake deep in his armor
a ghost snake a snake of hatred;
& my catholic pre-occupation with
her pain primed me to take her path
too many times (my) mind overlain
with an extra-terrestrial reality

She fucked me over boys.
The truth is she got tired of me.
Tired of the same old stories,
too much like her sick grandfather.
And then the bad chance
didn't come through for her.
Left her living in a garret
with my five year old daughter in
a sad neighborhood in Bloomington.
Is this history or just a long-awaited panic?
I let the pain take me to the hardware store.
I bought the plastic and
walled myself in the kitchen,
turned on the gas.
She almost killed me.
I am certain that was the plan.
Fuck her. And her minor art.
She could have been the real thing.
If only she could have gambled honestly.
If only she could look in the mirror
And open her eyes.