For Jen
an elegy
Jennifer, your relics leave me empty.
They were never you. Shoebox of triangle-folded notes,
red corsage, T-shirt (size small), photographs:
at seven, on a cereal box,
at nineteen, at odds with the world,
on the beach, in a dorm room, laughing in their faces,
the loudest voice in any room. Today, in the bath,
I was thinking of you again.
Your words that day in Chandler, the curb
outside the convenience store
scalding our hands, our thighs, holding sunshine dry
in our mouths. Throwing secrets
into oven air. I wish I remembered exactly
what you said, I wish I'd listened better.
Jennifer, I lived long enough to know grief.
Let me tell you. You'd understand.
I heard about you this way,
suddenly, cushionless. Those days, I felt everything,
felt everything twice. The earth was deep thirsty that summer,
but the day after your funeral it rained
and I stood under the opened-up sky, bright gray,
because my face was wet, anyway.
At first I could only cry where there was water already.
At first, I could only grieve alone, and then grief was a conjuring,
saying "Jennifer" over and over, trying
to pull ghosts out of empty spaces, in the shower,
in the dark, washcloth over my face, never
in a million years could I do this how Jen would do it.
Jennifer, lately I can't picture your face,
can't remember if you painted your nails
or kept them plain and trimmed. Best friends
should know such things.
Jennifer: Rocky Point: margarita in hand.
Kissing all the clumsy boys, you said
you'd never settle. Drunk, skateboarding down
a set of stairs, breaking your wrist; losing your shoes
in a dirt-floored Mexican bar, your head screaming stars;
Us: two girls eating hand-made tamales in the street,
telling secrets on the beach, drinking almond tequila.
You wished you believed better in God,
and every new guy you kissed, well he could be the one,
and sometimes you felt like you'd lifted off, and the earth
was spinning without you, it gave you this awful chill
down your spine, like when you pass by a car accident,
thinking that could have been you.
Jennifer: Silhouette against sunset. Smell of
tortillas, coconut oil, bare feet in hot sand.
Jennifer: In a car now, taking off your seatbelt,
stretching out to sleep in the dusty backseat
of Jackie's Subaru which, in an hour or two
will flip hard across eastbound I-40
somewhere near Seligman.
Jen I can't understand what "nowhere" means.
What it could mean for the girl
who could never have enough. I wash my hands,
I wash my face, my skin is dry, I used to borrow
your lotion, I can't remember what kind,
I'm in a lake, in a pool, on my back in the ocean, salt
at the corners of my mouth, I'm beginning to love
the taste of salt, Jennifer, I know you'd understand.
