Memorial Sap

Memorial tree sap pastes my car

until the garden hose and chamois sponge it clean.

If only memories could be vanquished

with a turn of the spicket, a touch of elbow grease.

Father bleeds into my mind's eye,

all indigo camel, jaundiced bottom shelf;

Mother's wheels grinding behind him,

all stink-eye pasty, acid tongued whiplash.

People say I have her nose and self pity;

I have his eyes and liver.

The spitting image, but it matters little.

Dissolving ghostly bygones

into the present tense,

I breath a sigh of relief half restrained

and go about my day,

these remembrances pasted still to my tomorrows.

Remembrances (outside the Peculiar Pub, NYC '01)

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The concrete seas melt to sunflower sour

as junkies fix on the tides.

Sweetened smells off sulfur ghosts

light small talk piss on ash and steel

with a sickness black to white to brown to gasoline combustion.

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She can seldom know why it's never ending

as refusal licks clean the remains.

Darkened stains of abandoned thoughts

spread soft and steady down Bleecker

until it flowers green to gray to grime to through and through corrosion.

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