"return life, / which ignored them and gave them hearts like windows"
	Stephen McNally

It’s a standard commercial shoot:
film in Dallas, post-production
in L.A. I know this freakish Texan
cold — it always hits me at
touchdown at Dallas-Ft. Worth,

the famous unnamed gates, trains
to nowhere, these things that
have changed since I saw you last.
Cold black wind. Our call time
is 6 a.m. I remember that highway. We film

the high school marching band in red
at the SMU football field, the bleachers
and faces and pivots, the steely rainclouds
of your town. The head twirler
is riveting, you would love

these boots, the turf, the red flag
color-guard girls and the boy
with the trombone. All of us frozen.
I have been trying to call you
for years. All post-production

is off in LA. You would’ve written
your own theme song there, we’d stroll
to grilled dinners off Third.
But I’m freezing my ass in Dallas.
These kids go into formation again,

the tuba boy is wandering. It’s not
the beat of a different autumn,
I’m just not sure why these, even,
turn out to be the pieces I’ve kept
of you. Letters from Dallas. Don’t

think I’m not finding you here.
We shoot four spots.
There are disposable cameras,
magenta pens at the bookstore.
A shirt with your handprints on it.

I admire this sharp grass, the glide
of lawns without curbs, the slow
openings of shops along streets
we’ve lit and draped and roped,
but I’ve got to go. Dallas

numbs without you. Can this
be fixed in post? I walk to the sea
when I get to Santa Monica.
Who would respect this as weather?
It’s amber now. Men make homes

in the hills leading down to the water;
their blankets, scarves, torn bags
snuggle against dust and cats.
It’s a good lost spot back under
the neon Santa Monica sign,

her last tossed kiss to the start
of the Pacific Coast Highway, views
and views of all the routes we’d drive,
we would have, until it’s all okay — 
oh. It’s okay now. It’s all over.

Back to Watching Ghost at the Ritz-Carlton  ||  Next: Hoping To