Final Interview

I don’t know who left the murder basket on my doorstep, but they rang the doorbell so many times. This isn’t a dance-hall kiss. This isn’t a documentary. I don’t want that thing in my house. If the call is coming from the kitchen, don’t answer. Let it ring, let it ring, let it ring.

Where did I go in my dreams last night? It’s after midnight and I’m lost in the Roppongi. The woman I pass is walking my boys on long black leashes like licorice. No one speaks Japanese in their dreams, so I pretend to be wide awake: chasing squirrels, playing with tornadoes, wagging every tail. I kneel in the street while the woman looks away and stares at her silly phone. You know me, I say to the boys. My older boy cocks his head to the left, but this interview has already gone off the rails. My younger boy asks: Why haven’t you put our portraits up? Before I can explain all the hours I’ve bundled myself up in the closet with them, the woman turns heel and walks on. You know me, you know me, you know me.

I don’t want to dream any longer if every awakening leaves me on the same road of bone-cages. I don’t want to be afraid of everything’s forever. I don’t want to be a murder basket on anyone’s doorstep. I don’t want to answer any calls. I want to be all the green of the Iya Valley. I want to be the warmth of the sun in the big dunes on Gran Canaria. I want to be your mouth, your lips, your breathing teeth after you’ve prayed with him, after he’s stuttered and sighed and fallen asleep after he’s finished. I want to be the last cubes of ice in your drink from that bar in Nishi-azabu, I want to be enough space in the plane’s washroom for two. I want to be an unmade bed in Omaha filled up by us. I want to be the soap suds on your back and ass while you shower and I stare out over a city as big and beautiful as a charmed marble. I want to be all the deer of Nara. I want to be able to forget about death like that. I want to be the poem growing on the highest branch of autumn’s last tree. I want to be the hand that reaches for the poem, grasps on to it, holds it and never lets go. I want to go back and do everything better this time.

Jason Davidson is a poet, fiction writer, playwright and performer. He’s written and directed over 200 works of experimental theatre and his one-act plays have been widely published. His poetry has appeared recently or is forthcoming in Hobart, Pine Hills Review, HAD, SoFloPoJo, Burningword, Heavy Feather Review, Luna Luna, Stone of Madness andother journals. Jason lives on California’s Central Coast with his husband. Find him on Instagram at @jasonwriteswords.

A Song for Jason