September Elegies

Randall Mann

          in memory of Seth Walsh, Justin Aaberg, Billy Lucas, and Tyler Clementi

There are those who suffer in plain sight,
there are those who suffer in private.
Nothing but secondhand details:
a last shower, a request for a pen, a tall red oak.

There are those who suffer in private.
The one in Tehachapi, aged 13.
A last shower, a request for a pen, a tall red oak:
he had had enough torment, so he hanged himself.

The one in Tehachapi, aged 13;
the one in Cooks Head, aged 15:
he had had enough torment, so he hanged himself.
He was found by his mother.

The one in Cooks Head, aged 15.
The one in Greensburg, aged 15:
he was found by his mother.
"I love my horses, my club lambs. They are the world to me,"

the one in Greensburg, aged 15,
posted on his profile.
"I love my horses, my club lambs. They are the world to me."
The words turn and turn on themselves.

Posted on his profile,
"Jumping off the gw bridge sorry":
the words turn, and turn on themselves,
like the one in New Brunswick, aged 18.

Jumping off the gw bridge sorry.
There are those who suffer in plain sight
like the one in New Brunswick, aged 18.
Nothing but secondhand details.

Jealousy. Whispered weather reports. The lure of the land so strong it prompts gossip: we chatter like small birds at the edge of the ocean gray, foaming. Now sand under sand hides the buried world, the one in which our fathers failed, the palm frond a dangerous truth they once believed, and touched. Bloodied their hands. They once believed. And, touched, bloodied their hands; the palm frond, a dangerous truth; the buried world, the one in which our fathers failed. Now sand under sand hides at the edge of the ocean: gray, foaming gossip. We chatter like small birds, the lure of the land so strong it prompts jealousy. Whispered weather reports.

is only something on which to hang your long overcoat; the slender snake asleep in the grass; the umbrella by the door; the black swan guarding the pond. This ? has trouble in mind: do not ask why the wind broods, why the light is so unclean. It is summer, the rhetoric of the field, its yellow grasses, something unanswerable. The dead armadillo by the roadside, indecent. Who cares now to recall that frost once encrusted the field? The question mark—cousin to the 2, half of a heart—already has begun its underhanded inquiry.

in memory of Reetika Vazirani (1962-2003) and Rachel Wetzsteon (1967-2009) Sewanee, Tennessee. Summer of '96, I went there for booze and poetry and rest. I danced a little dance; I talked a little shop. I forgot a recent ghost. "Invitation to a Ghost" was my favorite poem in Tennessee. And Justice taught my workshop. (God love him, he called me decadent for ending a line with an anapest.) At the dance party with Allison and the rest of the poets from Rebel's Rest, ambition was the ghost unseen, but always in attendance. And I misplaced my faith in Tennessee, upon a hill: I gave an undergrad what-for after priming him with lines of Bishop. Gossip is another word for talking shop. But Rachel, sharper than the rest, winner of things I hoped for, was above all that, like a charming host. She spoke of posterity in Tennessee. And every day felt like a dance preparing us for a bigger dance. In the bookstore, I pretended to shop with Reetika, Rachel's roommate in Tennessee, wicked-funny and stunning and rest- less. We flirted like we stood a ghost of a chance. I was twenty-four. I wonder now what it's all been for: that summer; the words; the awful dance that followed. So many ghosts. Let the muses close the horror shop. Let Rachel and Reetika rest. —Years ago, there was Tennessee.

Poems

September Elegies

More by Randall Mann

Poem Beginning with a Line by John Ashbery

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September Elegies

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