Castle Rose

My friends all think their apartments
used to be brothels. I don’t think
any of them ever were, but it’s a fitting mythology
for an eerie, rundown place with the original mahoganies,
hex tiles, and claw-foots. Sex is a place for ghosts. Sex, cities,
specialty markets with vacant glass fish counters, gilded
wine bars shut with the dissipation of frivolity
that necessitates a gilded wine bar.

It’s the Fourth of July. The city is empty.
Stoplights change. Shifting
powerbox gears echo the metallic rattle of cart
on concrete. Friends have changed apartments,
partners, furniture. The Castle Rose,
the Cambrian, the Premier, the Gentry.
Tangerine pleather pullout,
mid-century tweed, black leather chesterfield.

On the way to a party, I stop outside the Castle Rose.
It is pale pink, mint, and soft-edged like a cake.
The neon sign is off, and there’s a tall black gate now
with a key-card sensor. The roses
are still there. I’m glad to see the roses
are still there. Someone has added petunias
to Addily’s old balcony.

I’d heard a rumor that Hollywood Vintage
had closed down and am relieved
to find it cluttered, peeling, dilapidated, just how
I remembered, closed for the Fourth but not
forever. Staring through the window at the furs,
chipped coupes, velvet-backed paintings,
I hear my name, and it’s Chris,
late to the party, carrying
an unmanageable amount of beer.

When I loved him, I could never have dreamed
for a better moment for him to run into me. It’s hot today,
but so am I. I mean sweat, of course, sweat. But today,
I look damn good. Little black dress. Freshly dyed roots. Sweat,
yes, but in a sex-oil way, and I’m wearing perfume. I smell
like sweat and roses. I am staring into a building
that is simultaneously perfect and dilapidated.
At this moment, I, too, am perfect and dilapidated. Now
reality, reality.

I say, can I help you carry that beer? He says no. I say,
that’s insane you’re carrying so much beer. He says no,
I say yes. He hands me two six-packs. He says, thanks
for coming. I say, thanks for having me. We make our way
to his new girlfriend’s rooftop where the party
is being held. I leave early. Carl is going to meet me
at the edge of the Willamette, and
we’re going to walk over it as the fireworks start.

It’s hard to have memories in the present. This is a poem
about what is finished. This is a poem about Addily
and her couches. This is about Addily photographed
in a grocery store in a faux-leopard jacket
next to a pyramid of tangerines. This is a poem
about Carl waiting on the east end of the river.
This is a poem about exes. This is a poem
about the future.