- You would have known the arabesque, the wishing horse
for Nate
You would have seen the oldtattooed men to the shore,
helped them turn back into boys, into underknowns.You would have filled in the words
around the missing letters of theirunjeweled hands, their unpierced ears.
You would have known how rightyou were when we found
you in that alley, your handa black fist, your hair
the color of don’t cut the redwire. You were the electrical
tape wound about the sky, keepingout the rain. We would find
the key, take the anonymous call,buy the one-way ticket to Seoul.
We would open your safety deposit box,unfurl the weathered map,
follow the dottedline up your belly [End Page 38]
and punch the X over your heart.You would have laughed about
how the greatest owl of our generationasks the only real question there isas the boys on the beach turninto curled fossils, the fingernails imprinted
into the palm of a clenched fist,an archive swallowed by the sea. [End Page 39]
Jeffrey Allen is the author of two chapbooks, bone and diamond (H_NGM_N Books 2013) and Simple Universal (Bronze Man Books 2007). His poems can be found in Bodega, Handsome, RHINO, smoking glue gun, and elsewhere. He serves as the Poetry Editor for the online poetry journal phantom limb.