Closings

(revised & reposted from Tuesday, March 1, 2011)

The impastos and gouaches

in the small gallery on the third floor,

the long-limbed bronzes

crowding the poorly lit hallways,

the after-hour departures

rehung as an homage to the lives

of the long coats and wide brims

that filled the spaces between the shows

before fleeing the city

are not unlike the masked visitors

who drifted through,

pausing occasionally for a closer look

at the work of the brush or painting knife,

the blending of color,

the play of light and dark,

scribbling their lives,

page after page,

revision upon revision,

against the collage of bare branches

in the courtyard

moving to the rhythm of the wind

amid the color fields of seasons

with their unmet promises,

their empty rooms,

their orphaned boulevards.

Chris Abani

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The heart at the heart at the heart, yes? . . .

You knew this . . .

There should have been more . . .

Again, please? . . .

OK, what about the empty box at the entrance to your dream? . . .

That should have been enough . . .

What? . . .

Death rolled through . . .

You escaped into the peaks and valleys of immunization . . .

It's not like I didn't warn you . . .

I don't know . . . scammed and spammed shadows of PCs

crashing Windows plug and play players

waiting for the New Normal . . .

The endgames . . . the betting parlors . . .

iPhones aimed at unmasked stoners smoked out of hiding . . .

The last one out insisting it would all come in handy . . .

As? . . .

To unlock the door to the library where you spent

your early years perfecting the turning of pages . . .

That too sparked interest . . .

especially your work as barista

preparing orders . . .

serving eyes filled with anticipation and dread . . .

And later the conjoinment . . . fictitious yet detailed . . .

while outside snow flaked and accumulated . . .

Again, please? . . .

Why? I don't see the point to this . . .

To what? . . .

You whispering an emotion to me and I'm supposed to translate it

into a facial expression? . . .

There's really no need to resubmit your application . . .

No need to recolor your shapeshifting former lovers . . .

pockets filled with midnight passes . . .

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If on a winter's night a traveler

enters an empty room

and sits on the floor to read a book

about a reader reading a book

about a reader . . .

You wake to find yourself

peering through the befogged glass windows

of an old train

steaming across a snowy landscape . . .

Over and over . . . and over . . . my boys . . .

Navigating a snowstorm

in a rusted-out hulk of a car

whose ragtop sleeps with the fishes

is the beginning of a short story

about you . . . and not you . . .

You are about to empty

your deleted items folder . . .

You are about to knock on the door

of a no-longer empty room . . .

A reader reading about a reader

looks up . . . over his bifocals . . .

His bifocals reflect images

which tell of

lost time and lost loves . . .

A round-robin reunites players

with their parts . . .

The immensity of missing pieces

is enough to enjamb the patterns on a chessboard . . .

The white player is checked . . .

The remainder numbs . . .

You bump it up to the next level . . .

There are seven . . .

You are fed a lie . . . and enter a funhouse

with walls of mirrors . . .

Your crinoline costume speaks in tongues . . .

A tale of two . . .

going up . . . going down . . . going . . . going . . .

back to the back to the back to the . . .

In the distance . . . distortion . . .

If not for distortion, then? . . .

Trying to salvage the moment

or the memory of a moment

or the moment of a memory . . .

you return to . . . an empty room . . .

If on a winter's night a traveler . . .

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3D printing the monkeyBarr translates

into a nocturnal emission of guilt . . .

Parties party around a monolith . . .

It zigzags . . . hems and haws . . .

morphs into a two-party playdate

with the them-that-do-not-got . . .

Other monoliths spring up . . .

A winter storm watch checks in

to a no-tell motel in Houston . . .

We have a problem . . .

A masked man unmasks

and is brought down . . .

You tram home . . . disembodied . . .

sidestepping Jeopardy sans Alex . . .

a sad entry

into the deaths be not proud . . .

What’s the point of it all? . . .

What makes us TikTok? . . .

You watch the I Tawt I Taw a Puddy Tat episode

of The Sopranos . . .

Tony, Paulie Walnuts, and Silvio

whack FBI informant

Salvatore "Big Pussy" Bonpensiero

on a yacht in the Atlantic

with enough balls and whistles

to resink the Titanic

with tantric popsicles

for those displaying

their homespun compassion . . .

He was one of their oldest friends . . .

but he betrayed them . . .

Is that it? . .  Is that all there is? . . .

On YouTube, a 97-year-old philosophy professor

concludes after a lifetime of asking questions

that there is no point . . .

Oblio & Arrow from Harry Nilsson's 1971 The Point