& I will not stop for death if it happens to touch my shoulder—I cannot
die in Brooklyn/will not jump this bridge
for/over you. I will only look for you intermittently & between the
woolfian waves below & my makeup will be photoready
in caseI get discovered during said rehearsal.
& I will give a mona lisa smile to strangers passing
by & pretend the heartache has made me stronger. I will walk
strong with leather boots crunching leaves like I mean it &
a letter in my hands I’ll pretend is the last one I’ll have
ever written & I will hold this letter in said hands I will pretend
are not shaking. Accordingly I will ignore my bowels & move along
chin up in the rain & I will pretend to love rain if it rains.
On my person I will not bring the haunted paraphernalia
of my past such as flask or what the kids call chill pills &
I will pretend my bones are not growing cold. finally I will be
pretending woody allen is directing this all you see & in reality you are
coming back & it will be just like before. I will pretend the estrangment
was merely intermission & that we will grow old
together & smoke cigarettes forever into the dawn.
& I will pretend dawn is my favorite time of day/not midnight
burning the oil & if I go home alone I will pretend not to burn.
I will smoke alone in a way that would make
james dean proud & I will dream that my next husband
might be james dean ten years older & just as beautiful but clean.
& if things get dark quick I will pretend this is all
for the sake of a clean slate & that this bridge is not actually burning
that I am not indeed burning (it). I will pretend manhattan
is my man & pray the bridge can carry me home should I
choose to overcome my fear of flying & heights
which is to say fall vastly into that good night with a face
munch would be proud of. Not Theo, though, his angelic
disunity I love aside. & through all this there will
be no jazz or even blues—but I will ask the first person
through glassy eyes how to get to Chinatown &/or anywhere
I might get light. I will let the neons do the talking
against the solitude of night & its pained windows & said neons will be
the human voice to soothe me should everything go wrong as planned.
I will pray for all to go wrong so I might get free but I will not
admit this entirely, not until the fourth or fifth good cry. I will carry
one thing & one thing only with me: a book bag, & maybe gloves,
to suggest poetic expedition & not an ugly divorce or urban crucifiion—
a priest once told me that if it ain’t practical it ain’t spiritual & so
I will pray I do not practically die & in this way
I will have to get used to your ghost. One day I will look back
at this poem & say how once upon a time I chased your ghost straight
no chaser & laughed. Of course the laughing will have been to keep
from crying but the point being one day I will laugh
even without you & I will not die
in Brooklyn, my love.