bigger (12/17/82)
Brother
In my dream
I work over your cool body
like some sadistic lover.
Pound the chest,
pump it sixtimes,
fill the lungs twice.
You just lie there
where you fell like clay.
In the barnyard
we worked cattle
and when your heart faltered
you stumbled
(you never had before)
and you closed the gate
after the last, slow, ancient cow.
A step
and you just fell
like a slapstick actor.
Six times, try to move sluggish fluid
to your brain
(four minutes they say)
two lungfulls of my useless breath,
six times.
Listen
I only clench my eyes hard;
there's no time to wipe away any salty tears.
Beat the chest with my fist
that one day I might see bruises heal
push six times
two loving kisses
six again.
Alone it seems important that
the ratio is right
but I just don't know
two
six (come on)
two
There will be no clean paramedics here,
with sterile plastic bags
and shiny metallic jolts;
there are only my manure caked hands
and foul mouth.
Press you chest six times,
twice your chest rises, you chest falls
and I have breathed a dozen times.
Again the hands, and you lie there.
With my ear smooth against your chest
I still only hear the black cows
bellowing for hay.
Harder:
two
your calm face says don't bother
six (or five)
two
and there's a hoarse and voiceless scream
six
two, a rhythm
six
my back
twosix
the scream is mine
the scream is yours
two
your movement is mine
such a gentle rocking
sixtwo
all your breath was mine once
and I work the body
as if it was at your thought.
(four minutes they say)
six two six,
side by side.
The action is involuntary
like my heart that beats twice
where it had beat only once
three
six (and what do they say of hours?)
Where was I;
two
six
and our arms don't move,
the two of us,
one,
two.
Lying here as still as you,
there's a tearing in my chest,
and I gasp breath,
pant,
too fast,
but it's ok, you're not using yours.
Not bad,
two in one night.
Night.
God, it's dark.
I've been working the body in my sleep
and the cattle are a thousand
miles away.
But, we are truly brothers now.