Remembering Reading Raskolnikov Last Summer

Only one man reads, not two.
Not for meaning. A rabid car
swerves, careening into a dead
oak. The windows open
to the sound of beer nights
and trash can Tuesday mornings.

One day bored of my bed, went
downtown to library, sat in the saddle
of the blazing sun trying to concentrate,
black words packed tight on white page
wouldn’t walk with a wandering mind
that day and of course, at noon,

the climax, fifty pages from the end
with you in Milwaukee 300 miles away
and us breaking down you kept calling,
we kept talking, going nowhere
and I just wanted to know if he’d cave,

if the sweat rolling off his forehead
while standing in front of the commissioner
or wandering back alley Russia cobblestone streets
with the ghost of an axe haunting
and perfect planning gone awry

would put a noose around his own neck,
hang him for the numberless criminal readers
reasoning out their own murder. It’s unbearable
not knowing the future and you must plan
and you must know, but plans don’t last

and you can’t know your own self
well enough to survive a murder,
to bear the guilt, to walk away unbloodied,
stash the jewels in a wall and sick
for weeks on the verge of confession.

Only one man reads another man
and knows. Locked in a white room
no windows good lighting white sheets,
alone except for him
is how it should go, how the end should come,
the final truth revealed, no phone, no music,

no weight of your words saying over and over,
“Why did you do it?”