The Poem is Not the Anatomical Heart

-- for Dean Young

Kyle McCord, Poetry

The poet wants to rejoin the poem

even after behaving terribly and can’t. 

You aren’t welcome because you’re something else now. 

An estranged father, a white-noise of two lovers

lost in Malibu.  One nervous.  One naively fearless. 

One ill-equipped for the rapidly aggregating promises

made by two of the damned rowing in tandem in the dark.

At a certain point it’s beyond forgiveness

and I couldn’t positively tell you why. 

In Hebrew, the word for near and inside sound nearly identical

told to a crowd at a party which one is asked to leave

for having two beyond too many, for behaving terribly. 

Then back down the same fire escape, same sidewalks,

same phone buzzing into oblivion. 

Like sometimes all that clots the wound

is Don’t call here drunk and late. 

One blameless.  One half-conscious. 

The stars tripping themselves up in the dark. 

I have a failing organ, you say.  I want to be forgiven. 

And though asking isn’t receiving, the soul has six wings

and roars.  The shoreline tonight so calculated and cool. 

There is not a person left worth forgiving you.