I had the carne seca dinner at El Charro tonight.
And the salt is starting to make its way back through my skin.
Mostly in my lips at the moment, it feels like.
I'll read a poem.
It's about my father.
When my first book came out, which
has maybe three or four poems about my father in it,
he read the book and came up to me afterwards and said,
I read your book last night.
And I said, Oh, what did you think?
And he said, well, let me ask you a question.
He said-- he said, I liked it.
Let me ask you a question.
I said, what's that?
And he said, are you writing another one?
I said, Yeah.
He said, well, do me a favor.
Leave me out of this one.
[LAUGHTER]
He's an egomaniac.
There were only three poems in there about him.
And I'd actually already written this poem.
It's called, I am a Pilgrim and A
Stranger, which is an old Appalachian folk song, actually.
In the one small clearing between the tag
end of an endorphin spike, and a ragged pulse tone emitted
by his heart monitor, uncomprehending,
hopeless, rueful, paid of recrimination,
my father wants again to roll up the pastel pajama leg
and show me the ulceration that pits his thigh.
I had no more arguments on the 5th of 26 floors for compliance
and denial at Brigham and Women's Hospital.
I can't even hold his hand.
Nothing to be afraid of.
An amber circle rims and measures
the ulcer, bruised purple at the edge, hub and core, gray
as axle grease, the skin crusts with scabs, look long, alone,
and it's like staring hard into the sun.
Turn away, the afterimage burns on your retina, a negative.
Another more restless and weary eye blankly glaring back.
Clench shut your lids.
It tracks inside your head.
Not God's eye since he's withdrawn
from the universe and spot welded the seams,
weaving all his laws inside to gear the engine.
Not pains or prides but the eye of a pilgrim and wanderer
for whom Earth is only a wind struck and lonely ridge.
Overlooking cities sprawled below on a plane
the color of straw.
What have I seen--
what have I seen I have not let go of and only loved?