by Keith Kopka

At the beep, I start my story
again: Heartbreak Hill, Tarzan
scaling its tree-pimpled back faster
than any white man. How,
in the seventies, my father
saw him bite a chunk
from a pint glass, hunched
over a bar along the wharf
in Narragansett. The answering
machine cuts off, and I pour
another. There’s a new
bottle each night to cover
the ping of my car’s
finished engine. I don’t bother
with proportions. I’ve watched
my father, and his father shake,
each blossoming Chestnut
branch, the pollination of ice
in glass, like a desperate finger tap
on the fuel gage at thirty
thousand feet. Some nights,
I pretend my body is condensation,
go limp for the oncoming
wreck. Through my window
I calculate the distance between
tree line and impact, then
finish my drink. I press
the receiver against my ear
and let the redundant beep shake
through me like sonar, or a
starting gun. Tarzan died by truck
in a field behind a bar. I’ve got
the story memorized: face down
in a puddle, his calf muscles
glistening like rain on a cow’s back.