WHEREVER MY DEAD GO WHEN I'M NOT
    REMEMBERING THEM

    Not gone, not here, a fern trace in the stone
    of living tissue it can somehow flourish from;
    or the dried up channel and the absent current;
    or maybe it's like a subway passenger
    on a platform in a dim lit station late
    at night between trains, after the trains have stopped—
    ahead only the faintest rumbling of
    the last one disappearing, and behind
    the dark you're looking down for any hint
    of light—where is it? why won't it come? you
    wandering now along the yellow line,
    restless, not knowing who you are, or even
    where until you see it, there it is,
    approaching, and you hurry to the spot
    you don't know how you know is marked
    for you, and you alone, as the door slides open
    into your being once again my father,
    my sister or brother, as if nothing's changed,
    as if to be known were the destination.
    Where are we going? What are we doing here?
    you don't ask, you don't notice the blur of stations
    we're racing past, the others out there watching
    in the dim light, baffled,
    who for a moment thought the train was theirs.


    REEL TO REEL

    Passed on to me after my brother's death,
    My name in marker on the see-through plastic
    Of the giant reel, on which the melody

    But not the words of "Jeepers Creepers" breaks off
    Halfway across the bridge into my voice
    At nine, with two friends on the tape, three boys,

    Three voices on the tape, three high-pitched in-
    Distinguishable voices hamming it up
    Together on some day I can't remember

    In a far corner of the playroom where
    My brother every evening sang the words
    While the tape recorder played the melody,

    Every evening no matter how tired he was,
    No matter what else he needed to be doing,
    Or wanted to do, despite the pleas, the sulks,

    The tantrums, because he had a gift, she said,
    And, fine, if he didn't want to honor it, fine,
    His choice, he could kiss it goodbye, for all she cared,

    But one day he'll realize what he's lost, one day
    He'll wish he'd listened to her—one day, that one
    Day each day shaken at him like a club.

    Which voice is mine? Who's there with me? What's left
    Of that day, of any day of all those years
    In the cramped house: two reels, one thin, one fat,

    And brown tape threaded through the housing, which,
    When you hit record, sounded (if you said nothing)
    Like water rushing far off underground,

    Turning the reels too slow to ever see
    The thin one fatten or the fat one thin.
    And "Jeepers Creepers"—that was his specialty,

    His show stopper, what he always opened with,
    Her little Mel Tormé, her Buddy Greco,
    So cute, so sexless, she could eat him up,

    When he was on stage: the adorable red blazer
    With bright white piping on the lapel, white pants,
    White patent leather tap shoes, straw hat, and cane.

    I see him when I hear the melody,
    And somehow I hear every word he sang,
    But not him singing on those evenings half

    A century away, no single one
    Of which I can remember anymore.
    "Where'd you get those peepers, jeepers creepers,

    Where'd you get those eyes" that hated me
    Every evening as they couldn't not
    Because I didn't have a voice or gift

    To be alone inside the spotlight of,
    No fear of any day that lay in wait
    To make me sorry. "Gosh oh git up

    How'd they get so lit up ... how'd they get that size ..."
    The slow reels changed without appearing to.
    "Woe, woe, woe is me, got to get my cheaters on"

    The moment when the tune breaks into nothing,
    No words, no music, the hush a sound of water
    Rushing underground, until a boy

    Laughs while two others wrestle for the mic,
    And then all three are laughing, hamming it up—
    "Heavens to Mergatroid!" "A wise guy, hey!"

    Just that, those seconds, "gosh oh gee oh," just
    The voices of a ghostly slapstick now
    From reel to reel to ferry us across.


    THE FAMILY BED

    My sister first and then my brother woke
    Inside the house they dreamed, and so the dream
    House, which, in my dream, was the house in which
    I found them now, was vanishing as they woke,
    Was swallowing itself the way the picture did
    Inside the switched off...