Black Ring, and: The Saddest Poem in Pennsylvania

Black Ring

Sadder than a long-gone summer's love song,morning sun gives way to clouds and, they say,thunderstorms tonight. Tina's in the bathroomcrying to herself. I say lucky her. When I lookin the mirror, I see anything but me. Is it OKto talk about my dreams? What about the onein which a woman with wings descends the stairson the shoulders of a shit-faced satyr, and Tinaasks if we'll ever get a table at this place, and I say,baby, we've done everything we can for our teeth?How about the stuff that isn't a dream, the thingthat happened last night? I was out walking Ottowhen I felt an insect crawling on my hand, whichI violently shook, thereby flinging my wedding ringinto the thistles and tall weeds that flourish alongthe edge of the dog park. Did you know it's impossibleto find a black stainless steel band in thick vegetationby the light of a dying iPhone while trying to rein ina hyperactive boxer-Doberman mix? Tina didn't.She said why did I have to shake my hand so hard,said I should have resized the ring two years ago,said if I hadn't been so goddamn cheap we'd havegold bands, said at least they'd be easier to see,said that everything means something, said it's as ifI wanted to lose the ring. Then I said fine, fuck you,Dr. Freud, and I slammed the door on my way outto spend the night on Wayne's floor. Which is whythis morning Tina is locked in the bathroom crying,and why I'm on all fours clawing through the piss-soaked undergrowth like some sort of urban Gollum. I read those books as a boy but didn't understandhow something so simple as a ring could containsuch power. Now I think maybe it's like Tina said:Everything means something. Maybe some thingsmean everything. A lady stops to ask if I need help.I say I'm OK and she asks me what I'm looking for.This happens to be the exact moment when I find it.I hold it out for her to see and say it used to be a ring.

The Saddest Poem in Pennsylvania

The summery part of summer long gone,too late to unlock the secret of seeing thingsin a new and startling way, too late to locatemy most honest innermost self, I'll have to gowith what I've got: two or three clichés, halfa case of the local microbrew, one-quarter tankof Sunoco gas, and four ounces of personal lube.Actually, it's not so bad being dead. The sunhurts your eyes and nothing tastes like anything,but apart from that it's pretty much the sameas being alive. Besides, not many people notice,and those who do don't have the heart to tell you,not even your shrink, who seems to think the trickis white pills instead of pink. The hardest partis that it's almost impossible to cry. I've tried itin restroom stalls, art deco diner booths, and flaton my back on the black marble ring aroundthe Lincoln Center fountain at three o'clockin the morning. No luck. Last time it workedwas nearly six years ago. I was on my knees,scrubbing streaks of melted chewing gum fromthe dryer drum with a neon-pink dish sponge,my upper body swallowed by the machine.I must have stuck my head in the Whirlpoola dozen times since then, but I can't recapturethat singular moment—the sensation of beingback in the womb, halfway through the breech,weeping, hanging on, knowing what's to come.