To fake your own death,
type in white,
goof on Man
on the Moon
wrapped twice
around my body
I must’ve
typed body twice—
—see the red stitch?
I’m afraid of losing
my ability to think
I confuse tumor
with cancer
Andy’s
tumor spread
to his brain.
He died at Cedars
Thursday with clouds
I was fucking at midnight
picturing different faces
S sent me the paragraph
he was dreaming
of Sinai, ordering
two tops, Toblerone
dick, he meant
dicks
plural, you think
your obsessions stay forever
they don’t -- so much
I've forgotten today
sage green palm
tree, squat crown
grenade in the parking lot, a man
older than my father changing
his wetsuit in the trunk
of his van. He wore a Speedo
smaller than my bikini
I carried my son
to the playground. Waves
seized up surfers, we
sized up waves
and bikers ripping
corners next to Perry’s
or Sperry’s, some
beach cafe. I was meeting a woman
I’d never met. She wore
orange pants and dangling gold
earrings, not hoops
-- circles, a bird’s
diversion.
*
I wanted to remember the sentence:
my father made a cage
of his body. When I was young,
I crawled between his arms
as he knelt on all fours,
a bear on the rug.
It took two hours for the baby
to fall asleep, should I name
him? I talk to another woman
and tell her I think I’m pretty
That kind of stupid thing.
I’m so earnest, give me a stunt.
I can listen he said, mostly
to my pussy. You don’t like
when I -- and he did it,
just his pinky.
*
Everyone is too young
And I am close
to too old. When I get desperate
I'll look up wrestling. I didn’t
dream much. I cold sweat.
The dog bled on the bed.
It’s a four-day weekend:
treasure. If all of California
will soon be four-day weekending
what will be special?
The woman with gold earrings
has two children, one seventeen
one twenty-five. Yesterday, she and seventeen
found forty dollars (two twenties)
outside the ATM in Santa Monica,
weighing what to do.
Every moment is a parenting opp
the woman said. Are we friends?
*
I’m ready for friends. I don’t
trust myself with friends, I want them
to want me so bad. S, I don’t know
if she's my friend, texted me a video
of her London glass house.
We hardly know each other.
She told me she was chewing
through my stories I hope
it’s not creepy, she said. I’m in love
with everyone right now. I’m not
sure I was in love
with Andy Kaufman,
Christmas, 1999,
I got the metallic green
discman and Man on the Moon
soundtrack. I preordered the movie
from Blockbuster.
All my friends’ names start with S.
S told me Blockbuster boys
were nerds. Kaufman
was nerdy, S says,
too nerdy for his mom.
One of the people
I’m more in love with
looks like my nerdy high school boyfriend,
only hot. I think
we were wrestling, too,
my girlfriends played
fight club. I’m so melted
YouTube is the best I can do.
1.5 miles from this balcony Andy
died at Cedars-Sinai
the year before I was born.
He was thirty-five. You know
people say he faked his death.
I was fascinated with death faking
as a child, the way you are when you are terrified.
I'm just warming up, in this life.
I envy S’s twenty-five-year-old
daughter, her third case of covid, her job
in green finance, her dream to save
the world. The world wasn’t mine
to save. Playground sand gets in
my son's shoes. Rocks or crocs he says?
He likes teasing words. Pants or pants?
The second sounds like ponce.
Popcorn rhyme of Corvette and corset
on that weird stretch of Pico, just before
Culver City. Waves blanched frothing
surfers in the parking lot, most older.
I should Press play, I should respond to S,
tell me what to say. What is the point
of watching Andy Kaufman wrestle women?
Song and dance man. I believed
I had a deep sapiosexual connection
to Kaufman and trusted
our minds would've gotten along.
I remember the fantasy of ministering
to him when he was sick, first the cough,
then his everything else. When I can’t think,
I assume the cyst has grown .5 cm in four years.
I had the ultrasound at Cedars Sinai, Taper
Pavilion, on March 17, I drank 32 ounces
of water one hour before the imaging.
So 6:30. Then I drove -- I could’ve walked.
I parked on Burton, across the street and down
the block from where S used to cut my hair.
I mean, I had the sense
we understood each other. Also, she was cool.
I was not in love with her. I was only in love
with everyone. I eat ice cream
in the afternoon and type white love letters.
*
I check reservations on Traction
imagine my wrists
slick with white negroni.
I pee and squat love
the heavy chain inside my jacket
skimming my ass. It’s 3:41 --
leaf blower time. My son smeared
oatmeal tomato soup green smoothie
on the mauve velvet chair. I am not
afraid to turn on Andy, he’ll make me
laugh or cry, I hate people dying
Kaufman weekend is Kaufman weekend
because my husband is away
at a funeral. For the funeral
he'll wear a Hawaiian shirt:
dead man's request. Bob Zmuda,
Andy's best friend and writing partner,
performed as Tony Clifton a year
after Kaufman’s death. For a while,
I checked Amazon to see
if there was a copy of God
(Kaufman’s novel). I’ll have to look.
He lived in his head. It’s easier
in your head if you’re a boy.
I was supposed to be Sam. Samuel.
The boy I was supposed to be
such a big baby. Wrestling my boyfriend
on the zit futon in his basement,
I liked bending back his wrist
or when he winded me, our bodies
gnashing, ribcage knocking
like a hell harp. We found a clip
of Andy doing Mighty Mouse,
knees, arm welcoming
every cell
in the universe.
*
Andy Kaufman vs. Jimmy Hart
Memphis Mid-South Coliseum 1983:
only men leave comments.
Chris, Frank, Beau, Frank again,
Brian, SimplySteve68, Al, Isaac, Will,
One mystery: yes, cheese, please.
5,432 views. Two years before
he died. He’s ushered to the ring
by cops or uniformed guards,
a tunnel of boos. He wears
a white, long-sleeved t-shirt;
blue-gray shorts. His legs are pale
hair billowy He struts around the ring
and weaves the ropes
arms loose and cocked.
He claps and yells
and tests the booing crowd.
He maestros his right arm,
he maestros again,
he interrupts three men
in suits and big glasses
to snag the microphone
and yell SHUT UP. The light
and the groin. The closed captions
read Music Applause. A bell
ding-ding-dings. Dominant art
nightlight blue, the crowd inviable,
the ropes cut him off at the knees
-- well it's not a thing of beauty
but brother you never saw
excitement and action going
these guys have gone at
as a matter of life and death
-- too early to be on YouTube.