(not quite a sonnet, as she was not quite a girlfriend)
i loved her the way a moth loves arson —
completely, and with no plans for tuesday.
she wore my coat, my patience and my last good shirt,
and left in all three, which i admired.
she called me a tragedy. i said i was a matinee:
cheaper, and over by dinner.
i forgave her everything
except her taste in men,
which, unforgivably, included me.
now i light my cigarettes on the stove
like a widower lighting candles
in a church he doesn't believe in,
and every flame says her name
with the wrong accent.
— pablo murad
†
ii.
the raven pays no rent
once upon a midnight dreary, while i pondered, weak and beery,
over many a quaint and curious notice of eviction —
there came a knocking, rude and steady, like a man who's never ready
to hear the word "tomorrow" said with any conviction.
"'tis the landlord," i muttered, "knocking at my chamber door —
only this, and nothing more."
he had a beard like a funeral and a ledger like a bible,
he read me the scripture of the overdue.
i offered him a poem. he said poems are not liable.
i said neither, sir, am i — and neither, sir, are you.
and the raven on my bookshelf, black and fat and full of himself,
who has lived here seven winters and never paid a cent,
looked down on both of us, shrugged one dusty feather,
and croaked the only rent he has ever paid:
"nevermore."
— pablo murad
†
iii.
love at 3:47 a.m. in a laundromat
she was folding a stranger's socks
because the stranger never came back,
and i thought: there is a woman
who understands commitment.
the machines spun like drunks at a wedding.
the fluorescent light buzzed a hymn
for the sleepless and the stained.
i had one clean shirt, seventy cents,
and a heart like a dryer full of coins —
loud, warm, going nowhere.
she asked if i had change.
i said, lady, i've been trying for thirty years.
she laughed, a laugh with a few teeth missing,
the most beautiful sound i'd heard since the war,
and i was never in a war.
we did not kiss.
we watched our clothes go round
like two old planets
too tired to collide.
— pablo murad
†
iv.
on being beautiful and broke
i have nothing to declare but my overdraft.
poverty is merely elegance
the bank has failed to appreciate.
i dine by candlelight
because the electric company has opinions.
a gentleman never counts his money;
fortunately, there is never enough to count.
the rich have servants. i have a mirror,
and it, at least, still flatters me
on wednesdays.
let them repossess the sofa.
i was always meant to lie
on the floor of my own legend —
smoking, exquisite,
three days late on everything
except despair,
which i always pay in advance.
— pablo murad
†
v.
my heart is a cheap motel with a neon vacancy sign
the v burnt out years ago,
so now it just says acancy,
which is closer to the truth.
rooms by the hour, by the week, by the ruin.
the ice machine weeps all night.
there is a bible in every drawer
and a phone number carved beneath it:
call if lonely. call if not.
you checked in under a fake name —
i knew, because nobody is called destiny
and pays in quarters.
you stole the towels. you stole the little soaps.
you stole the 3 off room 13,
so now it is just room 1,
the only one,
and you are not in it.
the sign still blinks for you,
pink as a wound:
acancy. acancy.
all night.
— pablo murad
†
vi.
ode to the cockroach who outlived my marriage
o small brown deacon of the kitchen,
you were here before the wedding.
you came to the reception inside the cake.
you watched us scream about money,
watched her pack, watched me unpack the whiskey.
you survived the lawyers.
you survived the exterminator, who left in tears.
you will survive the bomb, they say,
and i believe it —
you have the face of a creature
who has read the whole of history
and found it crunchy.
tonight we split the last of the bread,
two bachelors under one bare bulb.
i raise my glass.
you raise two of your six legs.
to love, i say.
and you, wiser than any priest,
walk away.
— pablo murad
†
vii.
annabel lee moved to a studio apartment
it was many and many a year ago,
in a kingdom by the sea —
no. it was a fourth-floor walk-up by the bus depot,
and the sea was a puddle with ambitions.
annabel lee works nights at the pharmacy now.
she brings home expired chocolates
and the sad receipts of strangers.
the angels, not half so happy in heaven,
still envy us — mostly the radiator.
she sleeps on the left. i sleep on what's left.
the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
of a bigger place, a second window,
a door that locks.
and so, all the night-tide, i lie down by the side
of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride,
in the sepulchre of our lease,
in our tomb by the noisy street.
— pablo murad
†
viii.
the doctor said quit drinking, so i quit the doctor
he had a clean office
and clean hands
and a clean little future planned for me
with vegetables in it.
he said, your liver is a crime scene.
i said, every great city has one.
he said, you'll die.
i said, doc, so will you —
and sober, which is worse.
i walked out into the yellow afternoon
and the bars were opening their mouths
like baby birds,
and i fed every one of them.
an old man on a stool told me
the trick is to outlive the people who warned you.
he was ninety-one.
he was buying.
he was, for one hour,
the only doctor i ever trusted.
— pablo murad
†
ix.
a valentine on a bar napkin, in someone else's blood (probably wine)
roses are red,
so is this napkin,
so is the bartender's face
since you threw the stool.
i love you the way the gutter loves the rain:
grateful, filthy, open-mouthed.
you are the only woman
who ever broke my nose and my heart
in the same evening
and apologized to neither.
marry me.
or don't.
but come back for your earring —
it's in my drink,
and i can't stop looking at it,
a small moon
i have no right to.
— pablo murad
†
x.
the last cigarette (a death poem)
she sat beside me at the bar
in a black dress older than the city,
gloves to the elbow, a veil like smoke that forgot to leave.
she did not order. she never does.
got a light? she asked,
and i knew her then
the way you know the last stair in the dark.
i lit her cigarette with my last match.
she smoked like she had all the time in the world,
which she does.
you're early, i said.
darling, she said, i am never early.
everyone else is simply late.
we talked about the weather in the afterlife (mild),
about poets (overrated, all of them,
especially the dead ones),
about love, which she said she had collected
more of than anyone,
one last breath at a time.
when the cigarette burned down to her gloves
she stood, kissed my forehead —
cold, the way a coin is cold —
and said, finish your drink. i'll wait.
the bartender asked who i was talking to.
i said, nobody.
i said, an old flame.
and i drank slowly,
slowly,
the way you read the last page
of a book you already know by heart.