Still more to have
to do
a substance
the recon
the bathe
the bet.
__ __
Be where you are
all here
in heart
and the impassive lies.
__ __ __ __
And don’t come looking
for fear
of lost
time problems
lived with
the consequence.
__ __
Just sit and eat
your pudding,
your pears
and think of me.
__ __ __ __
Girls push you thus
and women
you burn
speak words
you hear
as moaning.
__ __
But that’s just it
it’s not,
it’s nowhere
and trying to please.
__ __ __ __
This hot immense body
turn from
or form
blue skies
above and
trust me.
__ __
And you screamed too
just like
a woman
in a painful curtain.
__ __ __ __
Where beauty beat to
learn to
live each
day one
at a
time and
__ __
The seasons, the sun
and something
is coming
and we'll get by.
__ __ __ __
We will stand up
heave forth
our chests
and be
bigger men
but boys.
__ __
From dark to closing
each voice
a whisper
of her what if.
__ __ __ __
Turn the oven down
don’t burn
the chicken
it tastes
too good
to ground.
__ __
The salad next door
came in
two bags
from the corner store.
__ __ __ __
Looking at you I
should be
hard but
I’m not
too tired
to think
__ __
about this weak body
it sags
and simps,
stupid to look at.
__ __ __ __
The way to draw
sixteen stars
on your
bedside table
so you
can sleep.
__ __
Counting them all can
calm you
your head
you wonder far enough.
__ __ __ __
Before they were here
they were
little gasps
of reaching,
little lengths
of longing.
__ __
Before you were here
you were
yourself, raging,
lifting yourself the mistaken.
__ __ __ __
In a world of
no one
else and
myself, why
not tell
that joke.
__ __
The one about the
old road
and chickens,
that's a good one.
__ __ __ __
She laughed at you
and you
danced and
danced, you
shook hands,
said goodnight.
__ __
The ring on her
finger brushed
your shame
and she didn't notice.
__ __ __ __
A body so beaten
and bleached
would be
dead if
it weren’t
for you.
__ __
You, still stumbling in
drunk at
all hours,
fingering me half awake.
__ __ __ __
Her ugliness was old
hat and
she spat
to show
she still
loved you.
__ __
And something in the
trees bears
repeating, reconsidering,
the birds there resting.
__ __ __ __
It is all rhythm
the beat
soft beatings
of hearts
and cars,
telephone calls.
__ __
I sing the song
of you
married too
and the feeling's fine.
__ __ __ __
Hold me on your
lap and
tell me
with pleasure
what’s taken
isn’t gone.
__ __
Tell me something simple,
reaching in
and out,
something to bide time.
__ __ __ __
