In Memory of Julian Boyd

[cbertsch]

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for Julian Boyd

This is the month of dead fathers.
I reach my hand into the bag
of darkness, linger on the blue
velvet as I fumble for details

because I need something to
hold fast. Roast beef sandwiches,
getting bus-sick on Interstate 80
as I flipped through my reader,

light-green, the cover torn. Your
scrawl, coarsened by the copier,
reminding me how little I know. Let
me ride past the refineries of

memory. One day I drove out to
Richmond to help Robin Goodbeer,
her basement perfumed with reality.
You showed her Hamlet's problem

was an excess of whiteness. We
dream of leaving the body but
it's our blood that makes us sing.
Before I heard the news I walked

back and forth in a bookstore,
restless until I spotted the Confessions.
Chapter 11. Bankruptcy of the limbs,
then lungs and liver. The ideas

remain solvent. Why did Nick
like opening cans? Because
that way he always came full
circle. You identified. A

windswept North of the mind.
Always trying to narrow
the point. And then you realized
it was gone. Clear water

is a lie. You know what you
want but not what you lack.
The real man heads for the
swamp. Louisiana. The

Depression. A mother soaking
up liquor. Nick never got
there. But you did. The fishing
may be harder, but it's a lot more

honest. Slowly you retrieved
the words you had lost,
repairing the broken links
between them with baling wire,

your fingers, voice wrapping
over and under until they held,
precarious. Ten minutes later
you had to do it all over. Some

rituals are worth repeating. I
remember when I first felt
you circling back through
me. I knew German. You

remembered. Phrases float
to the foamy surface, bumping
into water-logged things. The
truth conditions on counter-

factual subjunctives. If I had
called your house, we would
have had a halting conversation.
If we had walked up that hill

behind the music building, we
could have talked forever. Maybe
that's the lesson. You have to be
there. I see you reaching out

to punctuate a point, feel
the way your grip clamped onto my
shoulder, always longer and
stronger than I expected. How

the sight of that orange
Karman Ghia lured a story
out of its paper-walled hiding
place. If it's philosophy

of action, where are the
action verbs? This is pure
passion. I love you and
you can no longer love

me back. When the little
circle, perpendicular,
bites into the big one,
it leaves a metalled furrow.

Endlessly you opened
them. Cans. Shoulds.
Musts. My lid is off
now. The liquid sloshes

over the edges. It might
spill on the floor, make
a puddle to tramp through.
I will never forget.

Comments

Re: robin goodbeer

[(Anonymous)]

Thanks for your reply. Do you have any idea where Robin works, or for what dept at Cal?

Thanks again -

Re: robin goodbeer

[cbertsch.livejournal.com]

Alas, I do not. The fact that her name doesn't turn up on a search of the UC Berkeley website suggests that she may not be there anymore. Of course, I suppose it's also possible that she married and changed her last name, though she was pretty happy with the one she had.