Giggle

An old man can't see the TV set,
not really, as there is no information
for the end of life, just noise, pictures
that move louder, crash harder.
All you can do is extend your hand,
and he smiles, if he can, if the meds
are right this hour, and sick rests.
He can't say more than, "Adios."
No one listens to what's learned.
Ego keep us ballroom strangers.
Coarsest treaties are the stuff
of 50th Anniversary parties,
with undercooked pasta, watery
red sauce, chewy chianti, and
speeches strategic in the holes.
No one can be saved, dearest,
and we all want so much...
our greatest glory is desire,
and most amazing virtue courage
in falling so far from wanted.
The last place to look is down
the spine, in the direction of soil,
until eternity takes us in the way
our friends first made us giggle.

He accepts your hand, recalls life
as it comes back in blood cells,
explosions of old brain video,
and hunches of what took place.
It's not memory, is it, that matters?
Something marches down his arm
to enter your fingers, electric ants.
You try to get your hand back,
but you're plugged into him,
as he eyes you as a victim
of knowledge, the last thing
anybody wants in this world.
Work, bad luck, such sadness,
good things, death, and love
of his late wife, his kids, nieces,
nephews, neighbors, crazy
friends, cars, pool, quarter slots
downtown just surrendered,
the moon in windows, over
telephone wires or pacing desert
travel like a flashlight, and one
Italian salumeria, Top of the Mark,
train trips, his own bed, root beer,
Kennedys, real books with purpose
and care and discipline and pain
and wonder and utter recklessness,
faces of all women, Orion, mountain
roads in that old Fiat Spider,
the first two beers of night,
and the end of it all that dowses
what happens in a failure of words.
Now, you know. All you get
is much too much. OK?
Ah, you're 35. You know it!