for Nick Flynn
I really never stood a chance. Reading
the second page of acknowledgments, I
started to cry: …for being here always…
…for deep understanding…and…love that keeps
opening. What odds of survival could
I possibly muster once my fingers
curled in to those memories of your mother?
Once my eyes caught the glare of your words
flaring to images, counting all those ways
the heart can die: …hard O of its mouth…
conniving holy cards…you left naked
in snow…chalk scrawlings on the garage door…
small cuts on your forearm…commands to bike
into speeding cars…How can I explore
these lines for that crevice of light sensing
hope, signaling how suicide must lead
somewhere? How, when you keep quoting Einstein:
you can’t find it because it isn’t there
Roger Armbrust
August 12, 2001
