The Book of Goodbyes Read Online Free PDF Page A

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    Please leave a message.” The voice was firm.
    The voice forced him to leave messages.
    He told her about his mom who sent
    an Advent calendar with windows full
    of Xanax. He told her his mom always said
    he was a good eater. He told her to call
    and gave his number, though he knew she had it.
    Where do you get off changing your number
    and not giving me the new one? Not reading
    Endless Love
by Scott Spencer? Not taking
    me up on any of my recommendations
    like when I recommend you call me back?
    He kept waiting for the tape on the machine
    to run out. Every time he called, tenth,
    eleventh, and twelfth now, he waited for
    the tape to run out. Weeks passed. He took
    a Xanax. He drank a beer. It was raining.
    There was a song. Someone said something.
    He didn’t put it that way on the machine.
    He didn’t say I’m stoned I’m shitfaced
    I’m calling because they were playing James
    Blunt in the Whole Foods Market. Instead
    he told her about the view from his office.
    The tops of roofs. The smoke plumes.
    The clouds. He was Li Po sometimes
    and Catullus others. He made sure to get
    sweet after he got vulgar. It must have been
    an independent machine, sitting next to
    the phone, on her desk in her office.
    So he was on her desk talking. This isn’t
    very nice. It isn’t very nice of you to go
    away and not tell me how to reach you.
    I’m starting to doubt the whole enterprise.
    He told her about a podcast and a movie.
    Once, after reading Wittgenstein, he left
    a message of silence punctuated by
    a nipple clamp. Sweet again. Thursday.
    It’s me. You check this machine. You and me
    both know it. The tape never runs out.
    Don’t ask any questions of me. Stay on
    your side of the tape. We’re fucked.
    I don’t love you. I’m sleeping with various
    women from the boroughs, professional
    and amateur. I miss you. Come see me.
    I saw a therapist. Her voice was like a cartoon.
    She wore pantyhose with tennis shoes.
    I said this is the deal. I’m beginning
    to doubt the whole enterprise. There is
    no one I’ve seen that you need know about.
    I had a bad dream last night. We died
    and came back to find each other in the
    Dulles airport bar. That is why it won’t
    go away. You took me to the Great
    Sadness. You look cute even when
    emaciated. We were going to survive.
    We fully intended to be survivors.
    All our poems went up in smoke. Us too.
    I’m not writing. I haven’t written since
    I saw you. I can’t write. The therapist
    wasn’t too worried about it. I couldn’t
    take her seriously. I lied continuously.
    Pick up the phone. You must be checking
    your machine. Your students wonder
    where you are. Your boss left word.
    Don’t you have appointments to keep?
    Stop erasing me. Keep this one at least.
    This is a good one.

CURTAIN CALL

ELEGY FOR ZAHRA BAKER

    Zahra Baker is missing. “I don’t know. You all know more than I know,” says her father. The news on five websites tells the story the same clausal way. A girl, who wears hearing aids and a prosthetic leg, went missing.

    Why bring Lacan into it?

    I dated this guy who liked to make unannounced visits. “Whaddya know,” he would say. “I was just in the area.” When we broke up, he said, “You must have had childhood trauma.”

    I called my mom. “Did I have childhood trauma?”

    Where is Zahra Baker’s mom?

    Zahra Baker was born in 2000. Her parents divorced in 2001. No one can find her mom. They are both missing.

    Wednesday. Poetry Workshop. Here I am again talking without thinking. “I have a fake leg and I saw this clip on the news about Zahra Baker who may be dead with a fake leg and it didn’t make me cry. It’s very hard to make someone cry in poems or on the news.”

    After I said the words
fake leg
, everyone in the class looked at my feet.

    I do not have bone cancer or anything that easy. People know