Dorothy and the Wiz Part Two

Back where we used to be, darling.

It’s the same lot only the wrong scene, still shot

In ancient Technicolor stock.

As always you smell of raw animal and soap.

If I were to float above pop star flames as I did long ago

It would not faze you.

Why revisit past tricks?

You always looked wicked in drag, whereas I, out of it,

Really show my age. And you belt

Better lies into a microphone or by text. I say,

Let’s leave as we came, each unaccompanied

This time, nakedly proud and feral

Through shadows bending softly as pubic hair

On a lion’s crotch. Everybody’s gone

With the twisters. Blame it on climate change.

And as I gain altitude and look down on

The now ripped up road,

Those words that set you apart, those tones flying

From your mouth once again

In the sepia key of C major

Won’t reach me: The heart I gave left me heartless.

[Untitled Elegy for J.]

Let’s get it out of the way; this is
about life, too.

This is about you.

You, prolonged; you, not breathing
on your own, machine assisted. I’m
holding you from across the
continent.

This is for you.

I am writing. In one sitting, no
bathroom break allowed.

You are also in the emails I erased
by accident. You,

and the last time I saw you a few
years ago; I cut the visit short. I
erased you on that day, too.

Why?

Face it, darling, you were not exactly
easy. (And who is? you’d say and
have a chuckle.)

We love to make our dead laugh.

I’m wishing you awake; had I been
at your bedside

I’d have synced our breathing.

Still flesh

falls.

Housed in your head is that desert.
How could you plot your own
escape?

You have seen meteors spew their
fulminous messages across the brain-
sky.

You have breathed invisible
accidents. You’ve fallen

like milk from above.

I loved you once, didn’t I, former
crush?

Spilled then spoiled.

The dead laugh in their high chairs,
children that they are.

Take a last, dazzling breath. Fly.

May the ground gently let go
of your

big toe.