Casey Charles
A Letter from Dead Dallas
You bastard, I’m finally getting back to you,
back at you, back down to your plane,
your weedless Berkeley garden, your myopic routine.
I could spell that with two “o’s” in case you’re interested.
But you’re not. You’ve never been interested in more than your treks
and tricks, your trips to states I could not afford,
stuck in my Oakland bungalow. Stuck with putty knives,
stuck scraping paint off the mantle.
You ran your hand across that sanded surface,
oak smooth and flecked with enamel. You plopped down
on the armless couch and let me put my corky arms
around you for our final fuck. You bitch, you calculating
little bitch, your dear Dallas letter written and sealed.
Ready to let the East Bay bury me
while you ran off with Bruce or Larry or whatever
the fuck your boytoy called himself.
Ready to floor your little sports car,
your midsized compact of a penis.
Ready to abandon me, the man you met at Point Reyes,
the man who combed the coastline for abalone shells,
squeezed you tighter than your bloodless heart
will ever feel again. You knew my nodes were swollen,
knew my countdown, knew you didn’t want to get it.
Now you’ve got it. Now you know what it’s like. To have it. Be it.
You in a weak moment on your swivel chair,
adjusting the settings as if, as if pain were a posture,
as if you could assuage your guilt by remembering.
Beside the fireplace in the Berkeley Hills.
You were housesitting. I came over and took my shirt off.
You saw my pale definition, you saw my perfection
marred by moles and red medallions.
You swallowed my tongue as we rolled
over the Karastan carpet, unable to reach the bedroom.
Go ahead. Remember me. But know one thing.
Know this, you creep, you too will soon crawl
toward your cell, trying to dial 9.
The green light of the confessional is shining.
Father O’Reilly is waiting to forgive your mortal sins.
I’m waiting too. I spent a month of Sundays waiting
for your call, your knock on the windowed door of my sick bay.
I spent that time, spent, wasted hours waiting. For what?
You. You and your good cheer, your weaseling wit.
Get ready. You’ve got it and it’s going to get you.
Me too. I too am going to get you.
Casey Charles is the author of the poetry collections Zicatela (Foothills Publishing, 2018), Blood Work (Seven Kitchens Press, 2012), and Controlled Burn (Pudding House, 2007), as well as books of fiction and scholarship. His poems have appeared in Imaginary Archive, Educe, Floating Bridge, and other journals. Charles is a professor in the Department of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies at the University of Montana in Missoula.
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