By common trial

A blue toothbrush dangles
still behind
the mirror I avoid.

I can't decide, I don't know,
I'm afraid to find
out if I'll keep buying blue
because of you,
or if this will be
the last blue toothbrush.

Your last toothbrush
holds nuggets of you lodged
in the bristles. You are bound
still into this world.

So many hours since I scraped
your final meal
into the disposal, and I long
since gave your clothes
to those who can
wear them, except one
robe unwashed. Lately,
I can't smell you
anymore. I can't
even remember
enough to pretend.

I can, twice each day,
press my thumb against
the bristles, I can hold
this little thing
held in your hand.

This brush knew
intimately the contours
of your mouth, as did I.
You are lodged
in our roots.

Flannery said loving
that which dies
makes us great.

We are heroes
then, here in this cleansing
room, where we remember
together, your last toothbrush
and I.

2006

Thoughts and Comments

I performed this piece at the October 2006 Poetry Slam in Eugene.

The guy sitting next to me asked me if this really happened, because he thought it was odd that I jumped off the stage smiling afterward. Yes, it really happened. No, it didn't really happen to me.

It wouldn't matter if it had, though. My work is raw, primal and true, but it's art, it's not me. It's the truth, but not the whole of it. When I step on stage, I'm performing. I wrote this piece for a friend, a gift of compassion and love, and I spoke it with that same reverence. Yes, I'm very interested in opening an authentic communication between me and the people in the audience, I want to open the door to the sacred, but it is still a performance and I'm pleased when it goes well.

The title of the poem is from Leonard Cohen.

"But it is what we are to be pitied and praised for that we do, must, love what death can touch."
- Flannery O'Connor, from a letter to Margaret Lee, June 9, 1957.