To an Old Friend in a Falling-Down Town Patrick Faller
I can offer the image of a lonely barn on a farm road along the canal; I can render the canals’ waters stagnant but not foul-smelling, the algae a veil through which our firecrackers bloomed. I might persuade you to reassess your father’s quiet life growing hibiscus in the back of a van. The time he picked us up, he’d asked us, would we’d more likely believe him to be living as a conscientious objector or out-of-work actor? I know we both know the truth: the barn was dilapidated, the farm road hadn’t been travelled by anything farm-oriented in twenty years, and rather than acting and hibiscus-growing, your old man lived in that van and had recently broken into what was once his house after valuables and money. You know which things of yours he took and which he left untouched, and that it wasn’t pollen irritating his red-rimmed eyes. But what if we left those memories alone, and gave preference to that night you pointed to a spot in the water and had me hold a lit M-80 in my hand until the very last second? What if, in place of everything else, we reveled in the sound of that water-muffled explosion and the sight of the beige bulb of light that grew around and kept that sound like a promise?
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