Matthew Olzmann: Letter to Larry Levis

As if by some unholy, digital sorcery, last week,
when I typed your last name into the internet,
my computer came back with,
"Did you mean to type Levi's®"? And I said,
"No, I meant Larry Levis." And my computer said,
"Did you mean to type Larry Levi's®"? And I said,
"Oh Lord, grant me the strength to bring no hammer
down through Thy machine." And my computer said,
"All Levi's Brand Apparel, on sale at select locations!"
And I said, "I give up." This must be
your more famous ancestor
who made clothing from bolts of the cloth
we now call "denim." In the early days, it was overalls
and popular among cowboys, miners and farmers.
Later, it was jeans and jackets and prevalent among
all who were alive. These new garments were praised
for their "durability," meaning: they could last.
What the hell lasts anymore? Some of your poems, I hope,
but definitely not the cities or rivers or roads we pave
from one end of the imagination to the other.
And not our names. Yours, for example, even now,
expunged and replaced as I type it. The clothing sold to me
by Larry Levi's eventually wears thin, won't endure.
These jeans, purchased forever ago, have holes.
One torn into the left knee. One in the right pocket
where I keep spare change. Everything falls through.
I walk away from the desk. In your name, I leave
this trail of nickels.