Alabama

Bone houses and rust
where the water is green
and the grass is brown,
and the man in the homemade clothes
you slept beside all night.

The clothes are man made,
clumsy white stitches stitching
dark fabric, seams
on the outside, and everything
he owns sewn with the same
uncareful hand.

The houses with blind eyes
and too many nails, and the man
snoring all night beside you,
and now it is daytime.
Now there is a crane
in a pond of green sludge.
The sun is making
the brown grass look gold,
and the homemade man is offering
you a raisin bun.

One hundred acres of dead,
and my feet aching.
Trees one hundred feet tall
and one hundred years old,
and the years these dead had lived
carved into stones beneath
their names and dissolving in the rain.
How can we tell we are dead
if our hair is still growing?
How can we go on living
when we know it won’t be forever?

I ate handfuls of sunflower seeds
out of a black grocery bag,
watching the way we forget
our dead and feeling
ridiculous while cars drove by
me, all of us looking at the stones
we would one day dissolve under
and feeling our hair
grow out of our heads
slower than the trees were tall.

Waking in a new place with your feet
still on the ground, train-cramped,
sun rising and feeling
you’ve earned the 10°C
wind on your skin after leaving
a New York snowstorm,
three feet of slush, and your boots
still drying, the broken boots
you will later accidentally
super-glue your hair to
in a Best Western hotel washroom,
trying to glue the sole
back onto its body.

Newark

waiting for the train
to New York City,
the only sound is the light
against the rails and
a man speaking to God
on an imaginary telephone.
His voice slides across metal
and comes to us,
the dream we once all had:
I saw a picture of you in a bathing suit, God.
you looked just like us.

In your alternate life, you speak French and are a flight attendant.
In your alternate life, you have a boyfriend named Trevor, and Trevor has a golden retriever who is also named Trevor.
In your alternate life, you are a man and you are gay.
In your alternate life, the Rocky Mountains look like pictures of mountains from the 1970’s.
In your alternate life, you keep your eyes on the mountains while listening to the in-flight announcements and miming putting on a lifejacket for two-hundred unimpressed passengers.
In your alternate life, your name is Trevor and your boyfriend’s name is Trevor and your dog’s name is Trevor.
In your alternate life you are pushing a cart full of light refreshments down a narrow aisle.
In your alternate life, you think about Trevor at home, and for a second your boyfriend Trevor and your dog Trevor are one.
In your alternate life, a baby is crying and someone is asking if you can’t please do something about it.
In your alternate life, you have to look at people and smile at them even when they don’t deserve to be smiled at.
In your alternate life, you and Trevor your boyfriend take Trevor the dog to the dog park by the beach on your days off.
In your alternate life, the plane is preparing to land and you’re almost home.