John McKernan is now a retired comma herder. He lives—mostly—in West Virginia where he edits ABZ Press. His most recent book is selected poems Resurrection of the Dust.
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It had toenails and didn’t make a splash
Lay there between the oil & the moonlight
I never loved it the way I love music
I thought it might squirm or say something or point
I was wrong
It was as stupid as a newspaper
Then it began moving downstream
Something like an echo with nothing to bounce off
When I threw a quarter it went right through it
It didn’t have ears either
It left them on the river bank like frozen flowers
Why should I say goodbye? How?
I’d been drinking & felt the need to piss
I’ve never known how to feel or behave at funerals
I’m always happy to have flowers to look at
Feeling might not be important but the words
used to shelter absence seem valuable
without a beautiful hieroglyphic script
Never has anyone so silent had so much to say
If you look at the mirror you might think
There I am sleeping Waiting for the football game
But that corpse had nowhere to go No rope No shoes
No cane No map The silence in a letter
Folded in the pocket of a pair of blue jeans