J. C. Antone

10:01am: 8
you have the family you chose
lying with you
the parents of your middle age
your widow and i
preserving your memory
her in the summers in maine
me in poems and tears

eight years
now
eight years and i still miss you
a hole in my heart
and my psyche
a hole in my being

you are not here
to share my joy
to tell my secrets
to hug my when i'm in pain

i grieved for my stepfather
but
i have not yet
grieved for my best friend

2:28pm: hair
cleaning the basement,
after nathan drug down the TV
i felt you
pull my hair.

11:18pm: haunting
sometimes i walk in back
to my little cube fridge
and you're waiting
haunting the place
you stood
when you saw that
i feared you

i feel you watching
as i open the door
i feel you pleading
for me to forgive you

some religions say
that when we die
we make our own hell
full of all our regrets
all our guilt
if you can forgive yourself
you go on
otherwise
you get scattered and reabsorbed

i forgave you
watching woody allen
and sobbing while you patted my head
i forgave you
when i kissed you and whispered in your ear
that you could go now if you were ready
i forgave you
evrey time i said "i love you"

please forgive yourself
i want you to go on
so i can see you again

1:06am: yankees
Field of Dreams was on
if I write it,
will he come?

if I write it all down,
will you come back from the dead?

9:44am: ...
i felt you
the other day
walking past your mother's grave
on my way to witness
the burial of the little guy
across the street
mom said his face looked puffy and green
even in death, under the pancake
his mother couldn't bear
to close the coffin

mom and i walked
to the grave of your parents
and laid lavender and two pink stones
lavender for healing, mom said
i put the pink stones
because they were pretty
reminded me of beaches
and sunsets
and rose petals

later, as we wandered among
the rows
looking at the names while we waited
for the boy and his family
i found another stone
it looked like a skipping stone
gray and flat and smooth
no business in a graveyard
but there it was
and when i picked it up,
it was only half, broken cleanly
warm from the sun

i held the half tightly
as the mourners said their prayers
me not saying anything
just watching
and remembering the end of summer
two years ago
when we buried you
and i placed a stone in your grave
and the butterflies came and
circled us, one landing
on my shoulder
letting me know
it was
okay.

1:19am: **********************************
mom and nathan went to your grave
the day after christmas
i had to work

mom keeps trying to tell me
what the headstone looks like
and how it sits next to grandpa

but i don't want to see it
i don't want to know that
your name rests there, carved in stone

i don't want to see mom's name
birthday and hyphen
like a blinking cursor waiting

i don't want to see
the finality
of my loss

i don't want to know
that my parents will die
and i'll be alone





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1:10am: where are you today
when i feel so needy
sick with strep, lost voice
i've lost you
i was spreading a blanket
the plaid one you loved
on my chair
and i wondered if you'd mind
but then i remembered
you're not here
not here
who's going to go
get cream for my coffee
pick up my prescriptions
make me tea?
who's going to take care of me
when i'm ill?
where are you?
why don't you come home?
some days i just miss you
it's hurts and i can't see the keys
i ache for one last conversation
one more hug
one more cup of Bengal Spice Tea

12:06am: my stepdad died last year.
he was my best friend.
i wander around the house, thinking, "Hey, I gotta tell Joe about ..." and then I remember that he's not here anymore.
It's a big, giant fucking hole in my heart.
Sometimes I can't breathe because the ashes are too hot and I can't cry because I'm frozen.
It doens't get better.
It just gets a little less.


if that makes any fucking sense.

12:07am: cheek
i was brushing my teeth
and i was replaying your funeral
and all the things i wish i'd said
to your ex-wife
and her stepdaughter
how i wanted to tell them off
but
instead
i was polite
i turned the other cheek
i did what you would have told me to do
i walked away

but don't you think
that sometimes
walking away is a cop-out
that sometimes
people need to be told off
sometimes
people need to be yelled at
sometimes
people need to be made aware
of how much
they've hurt others?

3:47pm: the hours
time is folded upon itself
i know this because
i can't tell what happened two years ago
apart form what happened yesterday

i tell people you died a year ago
but it seems like you left a day ago
mom is decorating for christmas
this is the second without you

if nathan hadn't bought the house
i would have told mom
to spend her money
on another trip to London

sometimes going away
makes it easier
maybe you already know that
i don't know that i'll ever visit your grave

12:24am: triplet for joe
cancer is taking
champion of amanda
leaving skin and bone




illness leaves anger
coldhearted, i wish to be
stop tears from flowing




stepfather is sick
used to rotate my tires
now he is tired














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12:21am: stepfather
you are not dead yet,
but i am packing away your things.
you will not be making any trips
to your basement art studio.
all these items are layered in dust
cobwebs in the bindings of Keillor's thoughts.
i hadn't realized that you were gone so long
that you had slowly been disappearing
withdrawing from the life you shared with mom.
this year, you and she were to be in Maine
retirement shared, antique shops to explore.
the rocky shore's waves calling,
seabirds flying, crying out your names.
i miss you each day, a greater ache
upon hearing your deep, anguished sighs
and i wish you dead, i wish this cancer to end,
give me the clean break of cardiac arrest
to this hurtful, debilitating transparency.







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12:10am: *********************************************************************************
Friday, October 4th, 2002
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3:21p
i keep running into my stepdad. a book he read, and old envelope with a list in his handwriting, a stray sock. i find this thing, an insignificant item at best, and it sends me reeling into a memory. or it sends me into a sob. i catch my voice before i say, "Hey, Joe! Will ya come look at this [item name]! Isn't this the [item name] you've been looking for these past few months?!" and then i choke back my tears. i stomp them down deep. but it doesn't matter. i cry in my sleep.







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11:58pm: nuclear
my mom and i had an arguement
over whose stuff should be gotten rid of
i told her that the bed
my stepfather died in is
a good candidate
for disposal

she says "but i sleep in it!"
i ask "when?"
she defends it
telling me she needs it when her asthma is bad
telling me she needs it for guests
telling me she needs it
then i realize
she needs it

i go outside
to get some distance
watering the containers
of pink zinnias
and yellow snapdraons
purple petunias trailing on the concrete
brillant in the afternoon sun

when i come back in
she is eating tomatos
and chicken
with a creamy dressing
she looks up at me
and says "i, mmpfh, need you to get me something,"
(a napkin?)
"mmmpfh, medicare stuff for Marion"
she is speaking through
a mouthful of dressing and half-chewed food
white globs at the corner of her mouth
strings of saliva and dressing
stretching from upper to lower palate
i turn away

she follows me to the kitchen
then to the bathroom
as i retrace my steps
searching for my glasses
"it's on the internet, publications" she says
i tell her i need more information
she doesn't understand search engines
and specificity
she lives in her own world
of rural Maryland 50s youth
and Rockwell drug stores
i tell her i need to know the name of the thing she wants
she says "i need the publication."
she shows me the booklet from medicare
and in it is the address www.medicare.gov/publications
specificity in black and white

i say "okay, i can get that for you now"
and i turn away
not wanting to see what she has been chewing
what she hasn't bothered to swallow just yet
i replace her with my image of Harriet
i imagine Jack's mom
eating with her mouth closed
taking small bites
swallowing before speaking
delicately wiping her mouth between breaths
believeing that my delicate sensibilities
would remain intact
during a meal with her
i pretend to be in Harriet's kitchen
where clean counters prevail
no science projects in the fridge
and no compost next to the paper towels
i imagine my own Rockwell
Ozzie and Harriet
teaching manners by example
a napkin on every lap












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11:53pm: underwood
"we all have something of the beast inside us"
or so stephen king tells me through
an old woman in "the dark half"

these nights when you are not here
to talk to, to hug
these nights when mom is asleep
when you and i would watch
woody allen
discussing nuances of human interaction

the longer nights of fall
shadows taking over the afternoon
into gray winter days
i miss you

my beast yawning, stretching
unfurling
my beast of anger and frustration
turned inward
expressing itself as depression
manifesting in thoughts
of death and suicide

i look in the mirror
while washing my hands
cleansing my fingers of orange
junk food crumbles
purging the evidence
of overeating doritos
wishing for just one more
can of pringles
brought home by you
an offering laid at my altar
to share stardust memories

my beast is ravenous
woken from that dark place
by a visit to frank's house
the day before his widow left
for Alaska
empty, hardwood floors echoing
my heavy steps as i follow
her to the back room
"here is some of frnak's poetry, amanda,
i thought you'd like to take a look"
and i do, i look, and i see
a hundred rejection slips
neatly stapled to each
rejected poem
the dates span from 1936 to 1939
his spindly signature on each carefully
Royal typed poem










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11:51pm: time ticking
11:41 pm - ...
your watch is on my wrist
it still keeps time




11:24 pm
blue flame beneath tea kettle
ghostly casting shadows
i'd make tea for our insomnia
annie hall
in my ratty grey sweater

morning of my unemployment
and your retirement
spent making cuban
expresso
thick and sweet

the kitchen sponge
purple
and shaped like a rose
"of Cairo"
i joked as i handed it
to you

i want to step out of here
and into my dreamscape
where you are
vibrant
not ill
not dead

i want to waltz
through SoHo galleries
modern art betrayals
picasso mysteries

blue gaslight
illumanting your
disappearance
no shadows cast
by your ghost












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11:50pm: impressions
this week
she is jabbing at my last nerve.
between the days getting shorter
and her phrenic 'gotta get stuff done"
winter nesting bullshit
i m grumpy and irritable.

"when are you gonna get
your shit
out of the little room?"
"we've got to get that ceiling repainted
when can you do it?"
"let's clean out the garage!"
"let's work on the wall!"

last year and the year before
before joe died
i had energy
i had stamina
i had staying power

this year
i have lethargy
i have apathy
i have depression

this year
every box i move
reveals some part of joe
every box i open
makes old wounds
crack
and bleed

she is upstairs now
vacuuming the little room
cleaning and suggesting
pushing
needling
i just yelled
"isn't that enough?!"
please
give me a chance
to catch my breath

i have been displaced
from california
and now new jersey
going underground fully
completely buried
not quite six feet
at least i have windows
and a few moments
of 4 o'clock sun


i am not like her
in need of constant motion
using gravity as a fulcurm
swinging past memories
wooshing by ever faster
blurring them with time
and movement
blending the past
into a landscape
by an impressionist
with cataracts












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11:49pm: ghosts
on tv: when people in the 1800's saw the first luminere` films they thought that this was immortality. they thought that no one will ever die if they can be photographed or filmed. their gestures and movements forever captured.


here it is a year later,
a year since you have died
and i cannot bear to look at
a photo of you

instead, i have my own
my special memories of you
here in my head
less painful to look at somehow

i picture you that winter
of 4 feet in 24 hours
looking out from the carport
at the still falling snow

the sharp lines of curbs and houses
softened and hidden
your aqua eyes
bright in the reflected indirect light

that winter you and i shoveled
the cars parked in a line
my Jeep in front
ready to plow through the drifts

inside
we'd have coffee brewing
our mugs waiting
patiently for our return












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11:45pm: dove chocolate bites
you used to bring home chocolate
hiding it from mom
morsels for you and i to share
in the haze of incense and old movies
sipping tea
bundled against the draft
we'd sit and stare
blue light flicker
as Cary threw Kate over his shoulder and laughed

i want to ask you how this second fall
underground
feels to your carbon shell
do you haunt the family plot,
you and grandpa chatting it up
talking of the fishing boats and cadillacs
you never bought

i want to ask you if you'd met up with Matisse
ask him if he meant to make cut-outs in the end
or was it all that he could do
crippled and cataracted
wheel-chair bound
what would he have done
instead?

i want to ask you
if you still loved me at the end
when you wrote in "The Hours",
'To my friend Amanda, Good Reading Joe'
instead of 'love Joe' or
'my amanda' or 'tamata face'
why is the last that you wrote to me
so impersonal?

11:35am: ****************************************************
This journal is dedicated to my stepfather.

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