Draco and Cetus

                  Thomas remembered dying.

                                    It happened in July.

                  It was late morning.

                                    Hot muffled kitchen

                  glaring sun on yellow linoleum

                                    Thomas was drinking

                                    drinking

                                    drinking

                  wine to become holy, to make the pain

                                    slide away from his brain like

                  a raw egg sliding down a wall

and then the gut wrench,

                  the aching gag and crimson ribbons

                                    flinging from his mouth

                                                      to the floor, a flower of vomit

                                    like a lily, like the lilies in the garden,

                  all smeared bloody-faced

and he remembered stepping

                  toward the lilies, stepping into

                                    the garden and slipping,

                  suspended in mid-air

                  weightless, elegant,

                  his clothes soaked in red,

he hung like the red tail of a comet streaking

                                    then the violent choking

                                    the cracked skull on yellow linoleum

                  ceiling fan whipping white circle

                                                      holy,

                                                               like god’s vicious eye,

                                                      sucking him in

                                                                        how embarrassing

                  to lie in the slippery with no way

                                    to move, stuck in the sticky

                  between life and death black trap

                                    like a fly gauzed and suffocating

                                    in the black widow’s web

                  with all the people flashing

                                                      greasy red wails, the sirens

                  the whole world was screams

                  stuffed in his ears

                  the heavy chest shock

teeth dull numb vibrating and his hair aching

                                    and his fingernails and

                  how the light seared branding his eyes shut

                                    stuck and blind and cold lying naked

                                                      not able to cry

                                                                        or walk or breathe

                                                      trapped in a dark deep

                                                      the heavy marble heart—

but then he forced open his eyes

     and was back in the twin bed

          with Stubbs,

     warm, together melded,

holding hands, their sweet

     Coca-Cola breath mingling,

          their musky hair a brown

     corona across twin pillows

so clean and neat and peaceful beneath

the ghost glow

                  of stick-on ceiling stars

they had patterned

                  into their favorite constellations—

                                    Thomas picked Draco the dragon

                                    and Stubbs picked Cetus the whale.

One spring morning Thomas stood tall

     on a bar stool and stuck

          them up there, while Stubbs laughed

     and danced around squealing

look, I’m a whale!

     pouring a cup

          of water over his head.

Now in the dark

     Stubbs whimpered.

          Thomas felt the hot tears steaming.

                                    Draco. Stubbs, whispered, trembling,

                                    He looks like you.

                                    All the dark ribbons

                                    coming out of his mouth.

                 The night pressed

                                    its hot cloth against

                                                   their faces. Thomas stared

                                    dead-eyed and terrified

                                                   at the false heaven

                 gazing deep into the dark

                 until they both saw

                      a brilliant smear

                 of shooting stars,

                      each a luminous wish.