The Last Party

Ray's on helium, all of us, 

dancing Rays on helium,

it's the end of something,

Ray knows it's coming,

he'll never let it end.

He'll have his arms all around us

on his farm in Vermont,

us leaping Rays 

with Ray, himself, on helium and... port (?)

Though for now

the birthday boy, 

then his right hand

on a sedan, the dj silenced,

confused onlookers witness a 

birthday song interpellated 

come on 

who's with me

come on.

The last 11 years have been 

the wind howling and me,

quietly tracing a figure on the doorframe

of Capri

with the tiny red straw 

that kept the ice spinning

in fury in Jameson

just watching that sedan float above

and beyond me,

towards the street outside

lifted by Rays, forever,

gleeful Rays.

Fort Saint-Jean

Fort Saint-Jean stands at the end of the Vieux-Port.

Inside the fort there are gardens and a tower.

Inside the tower is a tight spiral of a staircase

which gives onto a roof with views 

of where you just were.

Inside the staircase there’s a rope which runs

all the way to the top. From the oils 

and pressing of thousands of hands the rope

is now like iron. That’s not poetic license.

You, too, would mistake the hemp for metal.

I don’t know which way to take the image:

Are we all soft things, made sturdy and secure

by those who’ve turned to us in need?

Or are we all soft things, made hard and stiff

against the passage through our lives

of one more set of thoughtlessly grasping hands?

I recommend the gardens if you have a chance to go.

Preferably at a time when there aren’t so many tourists.

That is to say: when has the answer never been ‘both’?