Steve Dalachinsky

A Letter to Thomas                -   steve dalachinsky


you're dead one week
oh what an awfully stupid thing to say
dead one week
tonight
another quartet in a different place
& i don't feel the same
myself

the flowers laid out for you
are blue & ochre birdwing things
on the drummer's shirt
with red flame
& dust exploding in my right eye
like a revolting soul
oh & the yellow daffodils that opened
over night
are mumbling something like smell us
no you should have smelled us
yesterday
today we only look good
but there's really nothing left

oh & how about that photo of you i received in the mail today
come all the way from scotland from a friend who thought he'd
send it 'cause he thought i felt "close" to your music
a photo taken of you in 1993 at the knitting factory
blowing the way you blow
oh & before i forget
me & this death of mine
that sits so noisy & sequestered
in all my aching bones -
tomorrow is your memorial
well the first one anyway
& you can bet i won't be going -
too far
or something like that

& a week's already passed
& a winter without snow
& the only flowers beside the flowers
on the drummer's shirt
& the daffodil's that my wife put in the kitchen
are the acanthus engraved on the tenor saxophone
& the roses given to the cellist in the film i saw this morning
& the bouquet left behind by the poet & then retrieved
after her reading tonight
& those two delightful little crocus buds
getting ready for spring
near n.y.u.



oh & next week this time will be two weeks
& more flowers will bubble like geysers
from beneath the earth
as if some shortcut had been taken
fueled by your newly gathered ashes
& your newly planted heart

& another week will pass
& then another
& another
& another
& other fictions will be written
that will be laced with
fact.



                      steve dalachinsky  pg 2 of 2
                                          A Letter to Thomas