Dennis Leroy Kangalee

Stepping back in the room, I caught myself 

Frozen

Like a cat burglar who had lost his cool

And for a second I thought I was Mahler —

Perhaps it was my high forehead

And my reversed sloped hair

As if my roots were growing out of the crown of my head and up backwards

Towards the sun (or the Aliens who had neglected me)

I was disappointed to not have looked like Prince

But maybe that’s the price you pay

For living past the age you wanted to die at

I thought I knew that profile anywhere, having seen it stretched across the banner of an old friend’s door 

He was a classical musician

and loved all things sad

 

He would play Elgar on a piano

and insist that it sounded better without an orchestra,

We traded stories of madness and caught each other once again

years later when we both did our stint at Paine Whitney

Our vitals were low, we were anemic, we were angry, we were young

 

And once when I stepped into the sun, my wife cried

And when I asked her why

She said I reminded her of something she had forgotten about in her heart

And while I was hoping it might have been Prince or some rock ‘n roll revolt 

That jarred her memory —

It was the moving shadow around my head, landing into the new apartment we

had just rented —

 

And I cursed myself as I heard our new neighbor jerking off his new leaf blower 

in a coarse Sunset Park afternoon up on the highest hill of Brooklyn where some 

Rich and poor are now living closer and closer —

 

I heard the faint notes of a symphony spilling out of a broken heart.