by Gary Mesick

He stopped for the Man in Flames
Waving frantically beside the road.
Other drivers slowed, out of curiosity,
Then continued on.  But
Even though he would be late for dinner,
He pulled over and got out of his car.

He heard a wail from within the blaze
Begging him for help.
So he wrapped the Man in his coat,
And together, they rolled on the ground.

As they lay smoldering in the dirt,
He asked the charred face what had happened.
“I tried to kill myself,” the Man said,
“Then I changed my mind.
Am I going to die?”
Not yet, he said.

He got home late.
Neither the paramedics,
Nor the police,
Nor his wife
Believed his story.

Three days later, he read in the paper
The Man in Flames had died.
On his way home from work that night,
He stopped for a drink.
He didn’t say anything
When his wife asked him why.

When a Man sets himself on fire,
If he doesn’t die of shock or infection,
He will most likely die from dehydration.
Without his skin, he is lost.
And even if you put out the fire,
You can never be sure
That you did the right thing,
Or whether events, once in motion,
Should have stayed that way.

by Flynn O’Brien

Denis Johnson

Saturday’s catastrophe hit the skids when the sunrise petered out
and joy crashed there like he said and ended

you bloodied, selfish man, we thank you

that supper of molded rubber
smells of cancer and discipline

but a voice sympathetic as a snare
eyes like reveille

feed

you never tasted better

we slunk for you
sterile and fearless

Frank O’Hara

I’d like to think he wasn’t drunk
but had had enough of fear
and impossible indemnity

a pale starfish on the cool sand
arms and legs adequate, undefended
against the eternal night everywhere

and as his joy rises and the black sand
accepts a faint glow, with the all he opens
and is certain:

life can run you over like an incalculable bastard

life neither cares nor doesn’t if you live
with that fear or if you don’t

Rachel Wetzsteon

Simple,
each morning is
a new breath, a small light
gently nudging my pretend death
awake.

I rise
so the day will
know I care, know I try
to meet its loveliness again.
I try

to let
it breathe for me,
to me, its respiring
is me and my air only its,
I know,

but it’s
rough, feels forced, this
remembering always,
never coming naturally
like light

or joy
in the morning
outside of me, where I
can’t quite believe in teacups and
rainstorms,

simple
things to hold dear.
I try to let them help
but there’s no end it seems to the
trying.

by Jane McCafferty

The day I broke out of the life sentences encircling my dear thorax
Was the day I knew the insides of my calves could easily be turning green
with unsalvageable vines.

If this is not a way to say “Scared of dying,” speak to me, Face Light.  Remind me you are never coming near again.  Last night counting moon coins, huddled in a torn black field,
I prayed the children we never had would be named for invisible
saints, like Dot in the cafeteria, who wept when the heavy girl said
“No cake today, M’am, my cat died last week.”

I followed that girl — I needed to learn to love a cat too much.
When I was small, I cut a worm in half, and still sometimes wonder if that divided creature ever found itself
conjoining.  If it was a planarian flatworm, it had a chance.  Planarians re-grow lost heads, their memories intact.

So I will be a miracle namer in your distance.
Miracle of 60 thousand miles of blood vessels
inside our bodies.  To be crouched down in a rainy gutter
with pebbles might help me to glisten.  I’ll remind you I’ve survived
the institution.  I can make myself up.  What I want is for you to hear
my breathing, like the child you were, holding the seashell
to your ear one evening, when all the others had departed —
and you knew that little fire of solitude —
that little fire of solitude by the sea —

by Jane McCafferty

You’ll be proud to hear I finally got a job
In Shame City, Siberia.  They almost employed
Me as a tour guide, but I didn’t look good enough
In the hairshirt.  What was I expecting?  I spent
Only nine rubles on that piece of crap.  Didn’t
Think I’d be in this city so long, or would have
Forked over ninety.  I’m still friendly, and believe
I’d be a better tour guide than Boris, who thinks
He’s so great, and really doesn’t belong here.

Never have I belonged anywhere like I belong
Here.  You might like to see me with my cheek
Stuck to the frozen window on the train I take
To work each black morning, and how the snow
Beyond the glass is illumined like an old lover’s
back in a dream.  I work in the foundry where
those who go too far with feelings shovel until
their chests split open, so the sun’s white
eye might penetrate straight through
the red tunnel of the heart.  They say the Holy
Spirit is always trying to row a little boat there.

I keep a tiny Buddha in my pocket.  Sometimes
my hand dives in and holds on tight — I’ll start
crying tears that tell me I love being alive
more than I know.  In the foundry my nickname’s
Chudak, Russian for Odd Duck, and I don’t even
care.  It’s my birthright to be here in Shame
City, Siberia where faces grow hot trying
Not to remember.

I’ve loved so many people, but it was always too
Much, or too little.  In Siberia I often dream
I see my parents and apologize for everything.

When I wake I hear their voices like the birds who
Can’t survive here, and wonder how much
A body can take before it becomes
A flock of birds, and scatters.

Each night, in the forest I sit on frozen needles,
humming prayers.  I pour bowls of shame stew
straight down my gullet, burning myself raw amid
the white pine sisters.  Then I suck the starred sky into me
like a train.  I know if I ever see anyone
I know again, I’ll be a different person,
chastened, restrained, maybe holding a small black dog
with a white collar, who will hear my confessions,
so I don’t have to tell them
to you anymore.