oh pioneers... (a poem).

            Massachusetts Winter

the first January in this place

was the worst.  i had been cold

before, i had been alone — but not for so many

days in a row.  if time does not “exist” then what

is this weight.  the difference between one snowflake

and ten, how it accumulates on the glass.

watching the wipers, back and forth on the windshield,

we sat unmoving, unable to exit 
the (relative) warmth of the car.

those pilgrims must’ve been fucking desperate, i said,

and you laughed.  a puff of breath.  whatever will 
left to speak was gone then.  breath turned 

to frost, like ash, it covered everything.

it was January when the wind started

blowing through the floorboards of my rented room

rattling the windowpanes.  under siege

sleep was getting hard despite the darkness:
constant.  shivering, the body refuses to surrender, 
afraid it will not wake again.  
so many days

in a row i drove to work in the dark and in the dark

drove home again.

the hours between rose and set in the window of an office

where i sat with pictures of people who died

and books in a dozen languages i do not speak. 

this was a job.  somebody has to do

the remembering, and i

was there.

living between the train tracks and the cemetery,

i remembered everything.  in wool socks on a mattress on the floor,

i heard the train cars rumble and squeal across the bridge

at night, whispering to my body,

i said, sleep

but there was no answer.

that was the year the exodus began. 

we met for one last drink, my friend and i,

the night before he moved to L.A.

it was such an obvious solution i was mad i hadn’t thought of it

first.  so i accused him of cheating — but what 

he said, is there to win? and ordered another round. 

every January now, someone else leaves.  there is a difference

between one and three and ten.

nothing to win is not the same as nothing to lose

when the job is remembering.

the beers fizzled gold in the yellow bar light.

dark wood worn smooth.  a gust from the open door.

i thought of a pile of shoes in a black-and-white photo.