Drinking and Thinking of You 2

The low lighting and drinks

That I have fired into me

Have made my gaze

Slippery at best.

Her glass is only half empty

Of a light brown ale,

Which in small swallows

She downs.

Before last call we’re leaving

To an apartment bedroom

That smells the same

As the back of her neck.

This is the moment

Where the dread begins.

The warmth of smiles

And alcohol drains

Downward on my face.

In a beautiful woman’s room

With her splayed out before me

Gently tugging me to come inside her,

I will be drunk and painless but

I will be thinking of you.

Scarface

I came

As soon as I heard what had happened.

You were still alive.

I would have thanked God

If that would have made any sense.

You were not dead.

I found you in front of your parents’ house.

The house where you and your sister were born.

A cabin

Made of logs from the World’s Fair.

You were sitting alone in a plastic deck chair.

You wore a white linen dress

And a large cotton bandage on your right cheek.

My face was numb

And my heart beat furious.

We hugged and you showed me.

Long thin marks and black stitching

Shined up with Vaseline. You told me

I was a liar when I said you were beautiful.

We ate a quiet dinner with your family.

They would not look you in the eye.

I was making up the pull out couch

In the guest room after everyone went to bed.

I sat in the lamplight and began to weep.

I had not cried in years

And my chest was heaving.

I looked up to see you in the doorway.

I wiped my eyes with the backs of my hands

And tried to be a man.

You came to me and I hugged your waist.

I wanted to be your shield.

You wanted to make love

And feel something that was not so sad.

You stared at me throughout and I wanted you to believe

That I had not been a liar on the lawn.

Abortion Clinic

The ceiling came down

at 3 am again, and I don’t have the time

to do the kinds of drugs I want to,

and I don’t have you to go home to

to talk to fuck to sleep

because I’m already home and you’re in yours,

It’s smaller now than it was before, mine,

and the animals no longer recognize me.

The smell is different everyday inside

and they shit on the floor

I told my boss I’d come in early

but I hate it there too -- get going

to get away, and end where I left anyway.

So fuck it. This is for you ghost reader:

time to jerk off

and hit the hay.

Once during day and now alone in morning

on the deck

i watch the clouds

and try to understand them

they are low

and moving quickly above the trees

I see branches

snaking the grey sky

in the clouds before dawn

like synapses

or arms of galaxies

the clouds roil,

their texture gives and takes

moving east

I see an eye and face

as in childhood

when we all looked

for shapes in the clouds

Life is Good

To turn a tap
and receive
water from a faucet,

what pleasure
cold water
is on skin!

Red

It's a lounging bar

Full of maroon lunette booths.

Polyester button-downs

Slide on faux leather

As everyone drinks their cocktails.

Dingy, passe yet somehow hip,

The air is full of discussion

About John Waters and Johnny Unitas

And bleary, ember bulb light.

Do you remember Baltimore?

The historic district's knowledge

So near the dangers of the ghetto

And you hanging from a low branch

In that cerise dress.

A Night Out

The wind rushes across the field

Covered in matted hay.

It needles your ears

With a low, cold whisper

And takes with it

The flesh from your bones.

Trudging lead-footed

Up to the barbed wire fence,

You stop and look

To the steely blue orb

Showering white light

Into the harsh winter's air.

You reach out to grip

The top black cord

With dry, purple knuckles.

The piercing of your palm

Warms your numb fist.

Lifting the wire and

Sending your cramped legs

Through to more to more hard, dead earth,

Your socks are drenched in sweat

And black by now

From mud and lacerations.

The air appears before you

In intervals as

Warm, wet pockets dissipating.

You wonder starkly:

"...where the fuck are my shoes.."