The Glacier
Issue Two
Winter 2023

PINK, BLUE, GREY CLOUDS

for AH

A dark pink cloud
green bottom
in the east
(of us)
after sunset.

The next day
pink, blue & green clouds

     before sunset.

*

The distance from LA to Santa Barbara
side A & B of “Let It Be” and
side A & B of “Abbey Road.”

He’s a young doctor
didn’t stitch me up tight enough
7 pink spots on my white shirt.

Surgical scars
heal & disappear,

when I carved your initials into my arm

Where did I put my favorite letters?
Together with a rubber band.
You wrote me a letter when you were a senior in high school
to my dorm,
I was a freshman at Michigan State.

You were a pink, blue and grey cloud at sunset
drifting with the currents of our acne and hormones.

	Your acne
	I loved to look at and kiss.

	Cleared one summer.

At night you’d climb the fire escape,
open the kitchen window,
quietly get in the futon.
I’d see you first
when I’d wake-up hard in the morning.
Your smells 
settled me.
Opening my eyes
I’d see your face,
the back of your head,
your feet—you got in
in every position.
     You’d sneak a girl in 
     sometimes
     when I was at work.

16 to 22
those summers.

You’re thinking of me now
other side this continent.
Now our skin is dry.

When we were kids
we put lotion on our oily skin during massage.
Now we’re absorbent.

You floated over
my best teenage years
we took it past.

Rolling

–for Bill & Phyllis Cotter and Hare Krishna Jerry Wu

Your last evening
breathing hard

eyes rolled back
only whites.

I put a cold cloth
on your forehead,

some water
dripped down your face.

The cloth
immediately became hot.

I wondered if
I was bothering you—

"Is this OK?"
Your blue eyes

rolled back down—
it was the last time

we made eye contact
and you nodded yes.

The whites of your eyes

*

I’d get up early
before your drive to Detroit.

In the closet a peg
a dark shoe-shine bag.

You'd stop at the top step,
I'd kneel on the linoleum floor

two steps below
and buff your black wing-tips.

The maple brush was stained dark yellow
and shellacked.

*

I knew you 21 years
tonight you're gone 28.

*

I'm at a goofy
silent retreat

at the Lake Shrine
in Pacific Palisades.

Picture window in the dining room
Sunset Boulevard, PCH, ocean.

A dopey man-made lake here
green with algae.

*

When you and mom
gave me my first car

when I was 15
to get to work in 1975—

1969 gold Monte Carlo
black vinyl top

in the glove-box
you left an envelope

"INSURANCE & REGISTRATION"

and a twenty
and a razor blade

for emergencies.
Can't remember what emergency

you said the razor blade for.
Slitting my throat

if I was pinned 
as the car caught fire

from Mark's joint?
I think it was

for cutting through the seatbelt
if the buckle failed in an accident.

*

Rolling into 50
I miss you.

*

You liked carburetors
I like poems

and this made
for no distance.

*

I guess this
it's for the others

with that
alive thing.

*

At 49
no do-over

wasn't
around at 19

*

I hired
the greatest guitar player in LA

to teach me "Here Comes The Sun"
the way George Harrison played it

(with Paul Simon)
on Saturday Night Live in 1979.

He showed me
in segments

an hour for 6 weeks.
I recorded his playing.

I'd practice
3 hours a day—

126 hours
and the last time

you sat on my couch with your guitar
I put the DVD in

and played along.
Months later

I went to see you and Dave
do acoustic sets

at Beach Front in Huntington Beach.
Dave took a break

it was just you
on stage

seated with your acoustic guitar—
you looked at me

and knocked out “Here Comes The Sun.”
Pristine moments build.

You brought me so much peace
with the ocean black

and the lights of 
PCH.

CRAIG COTTER was born in 1960 in New York and has lived in California since 1986. His poems have appeared in California Quarterly, Chiron Review, Columbia Poetry Review, Court Green, The Gay & Lesbian Review, Great Lakes Review, Hawai’i Review, & Tampa Review. His fourth book of poems, After Lunch with Frank O’Hara, is currently available on Amazon. www.craigcotter.com

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