this is the goodbye, cruel world poem.
in the sauna for the first time in my life,
i thought this a good time to strategize
my exit, to have a way out. i thought,
jeez it’s hot in here, but not hell hot,
I thought hot like home. elizabeth f—,
that’s what we’ll call her, gave me her
copy of fritz lang’s m because i was
at the pretension and age where I found
german cinema superior to american.
her whole face smiled, then cringed
as a bee swarming over her pink lemonade
landed on her nose in austin, texas.
i think i saw for a moment a glimpse
of what I wanted for myself and like
that bee killed by the boyfriend she’d
abandon for an au pair job in rome,
it squished. now it’s semesters at sea
and collar shirt shifts and the roebuck's.
this is the goodbye cruel world poem
that turns in on itself, rages against death
by contemplating it. father dead, I rest
uneasy for my mother, but not myself.
somewhere in a time-dilapidated house
she naps on a half-empty bed, absence
a ghost haunting both of us. perhaps.
the world is so clear, I couldn’t be happier—
sugar sugar honey baby, &all things sappier.
