I WATCHED YOU WALKING DOWN THE STREET

I WATCHED YOU WALKING DOWN THE STREET

 

I watched you walking down the street

as if your feet were bells

with a smile like a two dollar bill

that said

sex sells.

You looked like the executive

of a bargain store for cheap funerals

and I was a shabby syllable of a man

who’d been through one too many cremations.

But you stopped to talk

like a biodegradable gravestone

about green revolutions anyways

and I listened like an old cemetery

trying to remember

if I was buried there or not.

You spoke like the wind in an urn

about all the wonderful places you knew

with an amazing panorama

of a waterfront view

where I could scatter my ashes.

And at first I honestly thought

you were trying to sell me

real estate on the moon,

living space for the dead

in a sealess seabed,

spiritual lebensraum

in a high gloss magazine

with airbrushed pictures

of all the places I’d never been.

I watched the way your lips

grooved to their own music

like a flowchart

going in and out of total eclipse

as if you were a patient coming to in recovery.

You convinced me you were a good investment

but just as I was about to put

what I’d been saving up

for a comfortable death

into your startup company

my whole life passed before me

like the flash in the night

of an alarmist firefly

with conspiracy theories

about how the Big Bang

was just another lighthouse crying wolf.

And then the sky caved in

like a stock portfolio

without a golden parachute.

But when you walked out

of your private bathroom

wearing nothing but your business suit like skin

and summoned me like a ghost

to a seance on the internet

to merge my interest in you

into a global corporation

I knew I was dead

and whatever I said

would fall so far short

of your expectations

I’d bounce like a bad cheque

in a kangaroo court

that laid bare

my marsupial intentions

for all to see

I was guilty as an empty wallet

of following you home like funny money

trying to make headlines on a counterfeit press.

How was I to know

you were as superstitious

as a paper-shredder

about making love to the dead

but when you asked me

to read the lifelines

on the palm of your hand

like a lot of deadlines you had to meet

wasn’t it sweet of me

to extend your fate

like an unlimited line of credit

you could draw on anytime

you were in a pinch?

And I remember that night

in your twelfth story penthouse

when you crashed like a market share

and fell on the floor in a riot of hair

that looked like a run on the banks

and talked about ending it all

like the flowerpot on your balcony rail

that hadn’t seen water in weeks.

But just as you were about to

make your leap of faith

like a company too big to tail

into the recycling dumpsters

in the alley below

your dusky swansong press review

your broker called like a driven man

with a brand new life insurance plan

riddled with perks and tweaks

like coins hidden in a birthday cake

as you said with tears in your eyes

cradling the phone

like a bird to your ear

that if I really loved you

as you said I did

I’d take the fall for your sake.

I felt like the short straw

in a last chance lottery of one

that just had his chips cashed in

by the bouncer at the emergency door

of a bankrupt casino.

And later the doctor told me

in intensive care

how lucky I was

you came every night

like blood to a haematoma

and said a little prayer at my bedside

that I’d wake up from my coma

like a change in my will

mumbled in my sleep

that left everything

I had in my pocket

like a momento mori to you.

And I’ll never forget that first night

of my afterlife without you

when we walked together in one solitude

and the moonlight fell

like lime on a pauper’s grave

and you asked if I had any regrets

and I could feel your fingers on my frets

like an archaeologist going through my bones

and all my words were summoned out of the past

like the ghosts of lost cellphones

to your last seance

when I said to you

as my voice began to soften

you were an insight with attitude.

After all

how often

does a poor boy like me

get to see

well-dressed money in the nude?

 

PATRICK WHITE