EULOGY

Eulogy

“If a bullet should go through my head,
let that bullet go through every closet door.”
(Harvey Milk)

I. At Home for Easter

Jane stood while her father smoked on the back porch, nagging her about his future grand kids, tick tock tick. “Unless of course, you’re sterile,” he said. The elephant between them drowned him out, trumpeting.

II. Spilling the Gin and Tonic

We watched it spread
across the tarnished wood like the heat
from hand to back to hand.
You wore my jacket when I offered,
like a 50’s quarter back to the head Doris Day
oh gee, me? Well, golly.
I offered because you said were cold, but you liar,
you were sweating like a pitcher of sweet tea on a glass patio table in Alabama,
drenched
beneath your denim and cotton.
You opened wide
and I went south, our bodies

a makeshift Alamo
remember, remember?
I covered your mouth as you spread
across the creased sheets like the heat
from hand to back to
my hand, a Chris Columbus,
disappearing inside your willing India
I knew then I would kill

you for this,
for your subtle, well adapted pride,
your trust in my ability to transform,
for scraping apart my hours of work
with your tongue and teeth,
my palms the thin of your arm my breasts.
We were we, two entangled roots,
stretching towards the fragrance of living.
I blame you.

IV. Hush

Jill, what did you expect? That in morning’s arrival I’d kiss you till the bricks of my beloved Jericho fell, fell down? Did you think we’d watch the release, exuberant, feeling our own?
No. You knew. You knew. You knew.