David Franks Week - poem by Justin Sirois

I Didn’t Pay Attention
for
David Franks



I can only say good things

now that you’re dead – that’s the rule

people follow

or maybe I can say really good bad things like

he could peel a banana with his mind

or

he used to host spider eating contests

in bed.

Sometimes you flirted with my girlfriend

& that was ok.

I liked that girlfriend, too


*


if you hold a stethoscope to a banana

do you hear the hands that picked it?

You’d say

Well of course, you ninny!

& then I’d help you find a chair


*


I wondered if all of it was true

& now all of it is true


*

sit down, David!


*


you called me a few times & I didn’t

pick up the phone.

I think, when you’re young, you can chat & chat

up all night pondering death & The Milky Way

& then you forget all that

until you’re truely alone

& there’s a spider in your bed


*


a real man

(a man in touch with the real)

never stops wondering

about the banana

or what church bells can do

besides being church bells


*


did I tell you

he could peel a banana

with his mind?