Jimmie Cumbie

Behold the Man

It’s strange how many still come to ask about him. They shuffle down the beach by my boat or hover outside my door. Ex-soldiers. Sunburned wanderers lit from within. I know that light. After all this time, they want to know what he was like. I thought it was over and done. Some cosmic joke. As soon as they came to arrest him, I knew. I took the road back north that same night. No goodbyes. Now they say I’m the last one alive who travelled with him in those heady days. 

Worn from rowing, we’d haul our leaky boats onto the beach after sundown, after it had cooled and quieted. Away from the crowds and trouble, we built a fire, shared what we had—a few strips of lamb to braze, always making sure Mary got the best piece. Some nights, after a few swallows of wine, he settled in, warmed himself by the fire. We wouldn’t have to press, he just talked, told stories about snakes and fishing at night in that low voice full of hot silver. 

We all strained to hear him tell of wild times on the river with The Baptist. When news of John’s murder reached us, we knew our days were numbered. The Rebbe told us it was John who showed what charity meant. He said, “say your life burns down around you, maybe you drink too much, are consumed by lust. Say you gamble and lose everything you have. Your wife takes the baby and moves back home. How do you go on? You give away what’s left in your net.”

Let There Be No Mistake

you have to dance

even if it cuts everyone around you have to put on your mask turn it up and dance 

you imagine the neighbors down below

bitch and hiss

but sometimes you have to dance until your face turns blue

take your shirt off boy

run a knife across the belly of your arm

throw an open can of tomatoes through the long-loosened screen

dump your Die Waulkurie disks down three flights into the alley

watch them shatter way too softly for your taste

before walking to the corner of Ashland and Montrose

to Rayann’s Liquors

they may not like your condition

or your pajamas but they’ll take your money

and give you something

to help you dance longer

on the walk home take a picture

of the blurry chandeliers in the antique lamp shop

throw a laugh to the plastic deer in some panopticon courtyard

for strays                  

and dance into the house

if anyone gave a fuck about you they’d just go buy

you a gun

your dad is dead now all gone

your son hanging

out with the feelings doctor

the bill collector is on the line

dance to that hot breathless song that kills it soft then loud

dance your way right out of joint custody

dance until the bells ring on Sunday

it’s ugly

you’re ugly

but dance until there’s no one left around

get in touch with your tired inner sponsor

call him after a few drinks and slur dance awhile cheek to cheek

in some hotel room for mommy-abused boys

make no mistake it’s the only time

your tongue gets loose and hot enough to speak

Catch and Release

I open

the hatch.

Leo stows his new Zebco rod,

runs back upstairs to grab his hat.

My now grown son.

Exhaust drifts up

through the taillights.

I smoke too.

It helps pass the between-time.

It’s quiet.

I blew up

my life once.

Taped it back together.

I don’t pray

as much as I did back then.

Insects hover, zing back into the dark.

Maybe that’s it,

all the tape,

the crinkly feel of tape,

the open seams where the breeze

infiltrates. It’s holding, I’m holding on, but fishing,

this whole thing,

it’s about fishing

and the comfort

of a crop report

on predawn radio.

I could still end it—

what a chicken-shit thought.

I tried,

kept breathing. Onward.

Here he comes.

That rush of good feeling again.

The wind is blowing hard enough to wind up the oaks.

Creamy waning moon, bruised craters sailing,

held up in the branches for the length

of an inhale or two or three or four—

and we’re off.

Out on Lake Shore Drive

we relax into it,

the excitement.

He gabs about his mother,

tells me she’s on medication.

Strung out on the pandemic, his senior year,

his impending departure

into life.

Every time

we take this trip, I mark it,

compare it to the past.

The hovering fogs over corn fields.

The longnose river gar rotting on caked pebbles.

The albino rat nosing through trash.

It’s all very small, isn’t it?

It’s just fishing from the bank,

the same spot,

the same river.

It’s complicated, but

thinking small has become habit,

become reflex. What,

who, to blame?

Childhood? The shitty hometown?

Again? Doesn’t matter.

The boy’s going to Namibia in a month.

I tell him his mother will be okay.

Lake Michigan churns, cold silver in the dawn.

I tell him how that Deco tower looming

above the Drake

used to be Playboy HQ,

used to have bunny ears and a big rotating searchlight.

You could see it all the way from Indiana.

Blowsy times. No,

Chicago ain’t what it was.

You get to a point

where you could say that about anything.

But Lake Shore Drive is always grand,

and I’m with my son.

We’re off to get the big one.

The one that strikes

when you’re looking elsewhere,

the one that leaves you shaking,

the one you release,

because,

because.