I was 18 and bought my first suit and tie,
so I could go to Grady Memorial
and say,” This is Emily.”
Handshakes with coroners.
My attempt at dignity.
To be well dressed and say,
“This is Emily.”
To identify you.
You were 32, heroin chic.
Front page cheeks.
I found you in your bathroom.
Your hair matted, mascara a mess.
I did my best to clean you
before the ambulances.
I dressed you in my favorite sundress.
Floral print.
It was important
that ambulance drivers
found you important.
Men made fun of you
on bathroom walls,
but I still dry-cleaned that suit,
The best I could do at 18.
“the first funeral”
did you throw
your lunchbox
against the wall
as i did
when a car
crushed your
first dog?
learn how
to use a shovel,
dig, bury?
learn loss lessons?
if not, understand.
this is why everything
is so important to me.
“Simple Machines”
Some of us want
To be in love every day.
It is demanding to those
Who can pack a bag,
Close a book,
Remove the needle
From a record,
Underline phrases
That moved the world
And walk away.
I can’t walk away.
I need those books, records.
Like I need you,
You in the dark, getting
Dressed for work,
Trying not to wake me,
But I am always awake,
And I will ask,
“Two more minutes?”
And you oblige.
A short cuddle.
My favorite days
Are when you
Show up
With your hair
In tangles
After work.
You are all underlines,
Everything important.
I have given up
Finding synonyms
For your grace.
“Drinking in Parking Lots”
Some spring days there are
girls checking out library books,
And they may not be my girls, but
There is such charm in sundresses,
A book in hand.
Let's delay hell,
and worship girls
who underline sentences
and bite us
where there are no bruises
but want them.
Let's delay hell.
“Whatever Happened to Sara Shaw?”
Friday nights we boys waited for the grind of the gravel
As the girls' car, borrowed from a parent, steered up the driveway
To a friend's lean-to
The girls blew in wearing tie-dye that fit like a mistake,
Unpracticed make-up,
Pleated jeans, their schoolgirl figures obscured, unrecognizable
But she would arrive in private school chic—
Sundresses, more often than not in a floral print
But sometimes, my favorite, a navy number with fine, white dot print
Youth expires, and ghost towns last so long
Charlie Farmer is a Georgia poet and professor who loves his wife, Erin, his friends, his cats, his students, his books, his LP's, and everything else a poet should love in life. He is a lefty on the guitar but two-fisted everywhere else otherwise.
