Game 72

​CHI 89               ORL 111

Five police officers

Lined up to my left
Down the dim and flickering
Motel hallway,

Ready to kick in the door
If you didn’t open it.

So you did.

Here I am,
You said.

Pale and grey and naked and thin,
You looked like you’d been kidnapped
Or captured--

And I guess you had been.

Walking through the door,
I felt

Goodbye

Lurking in some dark corner--

Hiding under the piles of trash
Or buried by overflowing ash.

Goodbye.

You put on some underpants
And you told me your stories:

Your grandfather.
The witches.
The metamorphosis.
(goodbye)
How me and Dave are involved.
(goodbye)
The whole fucking
Mythology.

And I listened
(goodbye)
While you told me that
I too
Would go through this
When I was your age,

And you told me
How powerful
(goodbye)
You would soon be.

And as you spoke
(goodbye)
Some strange chasm opened up between us

And you got farther and farther away
(goodbye)
Until I could only see
By squinting, and

Goodbye

Was all I could hear.