Four poems for Kevin Killian

(1952-2019)

1.

It is 9:28am on a Thursday, the morning before solstice. Light

is whistling past my throat, a breath

commensurate to torn paper, ghosts.

I drew an eagle, naked; drew saltwater bath; I drew

your sullen red sun, the one

that would not wither. Earlier today,

our preschooler drew

a poop; because, as she said,

she likes to draw poop. This is for you,

she added, her two eyes

square against mine.

2.

Accounts vary, as they should. What is this half-truth:

Bay Area tenement windows,

a poet’s theatre,

an avatar, perhaps. Gutter boys and rainbows, hard-

checks, crosses; the terrestrial mechanics

of religion. Tomorrow night, I find out

what some of the poets from Toronto are doing

these days. I know

you would have loved that: in spite of everything,

a noise in the head. For now,

I look up this angled street contorted,

slippery. A rain, sets.

3.

As newspapers contend: an accidental princess

is not the same

as royal assent. Boaty McBoatface, who reveals new depths

to rising oceans.

An email, around the sale of your archives: “A boon

for two aging bohemians

that our papers have brought us more money

then we’ve ever made in all

our careers put together.” I am low fancy,

squared. What we lose, we lose. Your

unexpected death. Too soon. We lose our way.

4.

This email might come to you

as a surprise. An innocence, or lack thereof,

is never to be trifled with. Utterly constructed,

mirrors and cameras mere templates for love poems

that have yet

to be written. We learn our names

from our mouths. Tell me, something. Anything.

The news that, for some, bone spurs sprout like horns

at the back of the skull, resulting, possibly,

from the repeated use of hand-held devices: cellphones,

blackberries. Hardwired,

altered. The results are in.