Dennis Hinrichsen

I Had a River Once. Two Friends. This is the City of Dementia.

I.

in the vocabulary of river this is foam—

      in neuron

clogging protein (river cannot stream

            with it)

(friend cannot burn new engrams)—

      the pie-shaped

mass held back by an orange

            boom—

two workers scooping—bucket

      on a pole

as if they were scouring an artery

            or corner

in the brain—but I don’t see them

      anymore—

they were non-kinetic—I am trying

            to forget

them as the river is trying

      to forget

the foam—this fossilized chunk

      of insulation—

the way a friend of mine from

      the city

of Dementia can forget

            a thing

just by looking at it (charred

      lemon

meringue) and then letting

            time

pass or a stanza pass—time’s

      the fire for him—

my presence is a flotilla

            of

clouds—a clot in open sky—

      he remembers

my name—so far—it signals

            comfort—

lyrical nonsense

      energy—

I am here to play

            with pencils—

he was a cartoonist once—

      but he’s tired—refuses

this—refuses his pills—waves me way

II.

whatever is autonomic in the river

      now

is muscular forgetting—

            last

night’s rain the accelerant

      pushing

at the near edge

            (I am trying to forget—

will the poem

      allow it?)—until

this clot of solidified mucous

            curls

under—dissolves as plankton—

      O

here it comes now Dear Reader—

            your

dystopian trace—the world

      is dying

right now in front of you

            Chinook

salmon—it is forgetting my friend

      lake-brown

trout—dangling steelhead—

            walleye

like a boomerang

      in a bucket—I’m not

some banjo-playing

            Southern preacher

pitching woo

      barbed

with Christ—but it’s

            Eucharist

just the same—fish

      eats

of the foam—we

            eat of the fish—

toxic and caloric—pan fried—

      baked—

someone has inserted Death

            in the river

and it’s floating downstream—

III.

the way second friend burns

      you’d

think he was aura-ed

            in

methanol

      but it's just his cerebellum

clear-flame shutting down—

            the clog

is consciousness—

      that’s where the suffering is—

the orange boom

            mind

daily crashes—can’t really walk now—

      swallowing’s

hard—breath bubbly and

            shallow—

speech more and more mine—

      zen monk

death poems I recite on my knees

            so he can

see my face—hear voice—

      room warm—

pond outside the window

            where

he saw a deer fall through

      and drown

showing signs of thaw—

            the rest

is just progressive—

      river

inside its own idea of time—

            likewise

this poem—this tunneling—

      it’s later now—

I haven't forgotten the coagulum—

            the motif—

but two grown granddaughters

            are here

pushing his hair back—rubbing

      cannabis

into his hands so tenderly

            he asks them

to do it again

      before the nurses come

to lift him into bed—

            he’s deadweight now—

for that one or two naps

      he has left

this last time I see him before he dies