Monday, October 02, 2006

Dead Crush #17



In honor of Rock Hudson, who croaked on this day in 1985, I give you this poem I wrote about him a long time ago, which will never be published elsewhere.

If you want to know why I love him so much, watch this movie.






Like Love, Only Far Away

We made friends over a mutual admiration
for each others’ coats, and then that
turned into love. Love has helped me

to decide that I can’t live in this town
anymore, that I have no use for its barn
theaters, fish-scented trees, novelty

paperweights, and turn-of-the-century
patio furniture. Every day we grow
more tired, and every day there is less

of a bed, more of a pile of dirty magazines
or unclaimed hairpins. But I don’t want
to write about this. I’d rather see someone

famous and dead speak on a subject
of my choosing and write about that.
The person I choose is Rock Hudson

and the subject is animal rescue. Rock
is a bronze statue in chinos and a work shirt.
He gently cradles the napkined biscuit

I give him, rubs his nose and tells me
about the Lab with a severed leg
on Dover Point, the tourniquet and piercing

cries, a tongue lapping radiator water.
I am moved but warn him of the dangers
of running into traffic, how it might not

be worth it, what our human lives are
or are not worth. But he tells me of kittens
wrapped in a towel as his lip trembles

like a broken fawn and the large leaves
of his hands brush his face, he talks
about a wizened Chihuahua trotting north

on I-95, horses abandoned to the white
grip of winter. He excuses himself
to the patio, and I watch through

the sliding glass door as he lights up
and blows smoke cloudward, tears shining
in the late sun. This isn’t going like I’d planned:

my one idea is getting into his truck
and driving away. So it’s back to the barns,
paperweights, magazines, hairpins. I need

to move away, get out of here. I’ve lived
in Maine; I could get work as an ornithologist
or other animal expert. You don’t know

what you’re talking about, he says. He is
not Rock Hudson. He is alive. He is right.
My cries into the skin-scented cushions

are like those of a tropical bird. I’m no expert,
I cry, but I have loved so many things.

5 Comments:

Blogger k. said...

you are so bloody brilliant that it actually hurts me

8:38 AM  
Blogger Julia Story said...

Oh thank you. This poem is so old that I feel pretty self conscious about it.

I used to have many dreams about Rock Hudson. He was always very kind and paternal.

4:25 AM  
Blogger Dan said...

You gave me a copy of this poem standing in the hallway of whatever building that was after my thesis reading and I didn't read it that night for a great number of reasons or even remember you giving it to me for a long time. Then when I was packing up the house before we sold it and moved to Kyrgyzstan, I found the poem in a folder with the poems I read that night, all of them scribbled on with inter-poem banter, because I can't speak cogently in public without notes. Anyway, I sat down on the floor of the office and read it through a bunch of times and I've been meaning to tell you for over a year that I loved it. And that my favorite bartender in college was named Rock, after Mr. Hudson. And--though this is more specific to right now--that I'm very, very hungry, as I just watched Daisy Cooks on PBS and her food was very pretty.

So, thanks for reminding me to say thanks.

4:13 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

This is fantastic. Thank you.

9:07 PM  
Blogger Dan said...

See Rock at what may have been his best. Or absolute worst. Either way, Bea Arthur's also involved, so that's something.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cn8osyv-W94

8:22 AM  

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