Hearing Voices

"She churned me, she feed me with poisons," he says.

"And man, that's the highlight of my whole damn life," he says.

Tells me he said to her, "My body, it shed its old skin. So put that away. Forget the past."

(A dove knelt, delicate,

in my palm. Is that an object? a machine?

That small white body

beating?)

He wants new things. He is not easy in the world.

At a party, in the crowd he hears:

"Only sometimes. Like when you're on acid, or at a bar."

In the woods outside, after,

we are walking home and he says, "That was an answer.

An answer." But not,

he seems to mean,

one he would have given,

and not to any question

he might ever have asked.

He tells me she said to him,

"The train, the train! Hurry!"

And it rolled each pink organic wheel

in a sunset that gave ugly life to things. And

he had to leave, he tells me.

It reminds me of when I had to explain to her

(not her, her)

the fascination of horrible things.

She said, "The man flung clear--"

"That's just it," I said, "I like it."

I leaned towards her.

"I like it."

"There are no more any answers," he tells me.

Later, his body swims by,

now past.

"Catch it," I tell myself.

"He's killed himself. Just get the body out of the stream."

I can't.

I can't.

I think,

"Emotions are not of the head and they never explain. They are 'is' and 'did.'"

Then,

I catch him,

like a fish,

and drag him home.