our mutual friend in seattle works for subway
to pay for a ticket back home to visit family
I remember seeing her on the back of her fathers motorcycle
one day when I looked up from my novel and 7-11 seaweed wrap
common staple food, the common man
he had one of those old honda cubs, the ones you
can run without oil for half a year, painted green they
are used by shrimp farmers, post men;
she is her fathers daughter
excited to tell me her biology professor
gave her a book to read
and it was an author she recognized from
our brief time together on
the southern ends of a concrete slab

my brother hasnt spoken to me since november
not since he became an angry, young, idealist
mom is with her office girls, bowling, who goes bowling any more?
If the program is to devour the ones you love
than the irish choose to eat slowly and savor
the bitter root, unsalted or cured
the russians devour their pain as such;
marry men like their fathers, impregnate their mothers
but never do they devour family
comrade is different than friend

years after he passed
it was my job to take the old beater, rust tinged mustang
down to the shop to have a mechanic see if he wanted to buy the damn thing
his damn mustang
it would be years away when I see him starting to creep in me
but on that day I laughed like a mad men when the mechanic told me
how faulty the wiring and mickey mouse the engine was put together
the mechanic said "who did the wiring?"
and ten years flew off my back
ten years of thinking I was wrong
he was right
ten years of faulty wiring