(tom &) jerry & me
By Lawrence Worth Jones

(tom &) jerry & me

            for ja, re & kk

i wish that i could remember
the name of the painter you fisted
the night we met on his
and my way out of ‘the
ninth circle’

where on the downstairs bathroom mirror
the story goes one edward ran
across the graffiti
that changed forever
the story of the boy
who cried
wolf

i remember the shit
across the sheets
I’d never seen anything
quite like that
before nor
have i
since

although must admit
that toward
that end
roberto had once
tried that
with me

we
then caught ‘the
devil in
miss jones’

 i remember the painter’s paintings
as being especially vibrant
off the Sunday
morning warehouse
windows streaming
light over
a chelsea corner
of oversized
color fields

and i wonder whether the portrait
of you in the living room
you in khakis shirtless
in a leather jacket
through the seventies
isn’t quite as good
as fairfield’s
of kenneth

and as always i always
feel as uncomfortable
as always with
this these
first name
basis bases
of reflections
refractions
feelings

there was nothing angry in your
fist
and nothing human disgusts
wild men

and again as for these
names
sometimes you have to read me
quite literally
as well as
literarily
 
and by now you know
as well as i
you were the first
if not
the fist

and as for all the rest
and hopefully at least some of
the best

my hope is that
with you and me
we’re not as yet
quite
his(s)tory