Further Thoughts on Density and Bathroom Tile Coolness

There is a secret world
brought to my bedside
this spring

a resilience

as if answering
superstitious
desperate prayers
I hadn't even bothered to
utter, tugging

on bells
dangled
in scorched grass
by accident.

Perfected versions
of my grandparents
and father
arrive at my apartment
finely dressed
with trim haircuts
in a car-washed miracle
of modern
mechanics
and a full gas tank—

they ask me to drive

and to show them
my barking
breathing
son of a bitch
city

in its soft humid prime
preferably
at the hour in which
the oily sun
slips through the cleavage
of automotive headquarter
skyscrapers
like a necklace
dripping into the liquidy
lap of Belle Isle.

The mansions
I drive them past
are dead inside
but they don't need
to know.

My grandparents
cough with joy

and satisfaction

as my dad awes at
the dusk
and the lots
filling

with glittering
darkness
or the visible
leaking of light

with bird voices
breaking from exhaustion
or amazement
and popcans exploding
from surprise
fullness

and on this evening
they are all
my children.

I no longer dare
to dial the number
of our expired landline
2
4
8
6
8
2—
(these numbers
made of morning breath
trailing off into a thin film
of disintegration—
like tissue paper
gossamer as
egg yolk
in the toilet bowl
the night you were up
forever
crying
and coughing)—

no sound is there to answer
the phone
now

except the ghost whisper of
distant cocker spaniel bark
and the swift
squeal of an armchair recliner
collapsing
into ecstatic
relaxation
after making love
to the permanent
density
of
night.