Photo by J. R. Korpa
Copies
Noah Anthony Mezzacappa
Said I was nothing like you.
I mean, a quarter, maybe
of my life tucked inside myself and already
older than you ever were. Caught
that’s the word she used. Caught up
in the myth. In the upstairs bathroom
I cracked
the window, shook
the can till it was empty, dried up
the saline runoff with two-ply
and when I came back down I was alone.
On the shelf, Birthday Letters
and Ariel jutted out like you
just put them back–
side-by-side, the same veiny type
the same grey skin.
Two copies I already had.
Two more candles blown out and still
not finished with that poem
about your stanzas, the cigarillo tins, the plastic
caul over your mother’s needle-
point. But today I was there for the
pages you left behind–not yours
but the ones you kept within reach.
When you couldn’t sleep. Little corners
torn from your notebooks and tucked inside
them, woven in with receipts, ticket stubs
a phone number, a photo of her
and her son, not even two
that she mailed to you before
you left Phoenix House.
I know that sounds like a metaphor.
I thought it would help him stay
motivated, she told me, flipping the picture over
to read what she’d written on the back.
She’d already built the boxes, I just had
to fill them. And I took everything.
Birthday Letters and Ariel, another copy of
You Get So Alone.
I’d never seen those shelves
bare before. I took everything
except Nine Stories–
you must have torn the last seven from
its binding. I know
that sounds like a metaphor
but it’s not. We’re waiting for you
she’d written in careful black ink
the faint outline of the picture
seeping through the white like veins.
You’re nothing like him
she said. Like she knew.
Noah Anthony Mezzacappa
Said I was nothing like you.
I mean, a quarter, maybe
of my life tucked inside myself and already
older than you ever were. Caught
that’s the word she used. Caught up
in the myth. In the upstairs bathroom
I cracked
the window, shook
the can till it was empty, dried up
the saline runoff with two-ply
and when I came back down I was alone.
On the shelf, Birthday Letters
and Ariel jutted out like you
just put them back–
side-by-side, the same veiny type
the same grey skin.
Two copies I already had.
Two more candles blown out and still
not finished with that poem
about your stanzas, the cigarillo tins, the plastic
caul over your mother’s needle-
point. But today I was there for the
pages you left behind–not yours
but the ones you kept within reach.
When you couldn’t sleep. Little corners
torn from your notebooks and tucked inside
them, woven in with receipts, ticket stubs
a phone number, a photo of her
and her son, not even two
that she mailed to you before
you left Phoenix House.
I know that sounds like a metaphor.
I thought it would help him stay
motivated, she told me, flipping the picture over
to read what she’d written on the back.
She’d already built the boxes, I just had
to fill them. And I took everything.
Birthday Letters and Ariel, another copy of
You Get So Alone.
I’d never seen those shelves
bare before. I took everything
except Nine Stories–
you must have torn the last seven from
its binding. I know
that sounds like a metaphor
but it’s not. We’re waiting for you
she’d written in careful black ink
the faint outline of the picture
seeping through the white like veins.
You’re nothing like him
she said. Like she knew.