the strands of your hair on the bathroom tiles aren’t sketching defeat. that’s you spitting disease in the face with another day you’ve woken up to.

You said it was okay to blame
what goes wrong on the planet

Even from this distance I could go out
the door it would bang shut and crumble

Try not to see your own predicament in every fucking thing.

We stop doing dishes while
a mile unwinds
from the tree outside.

You’ve spent a lifetime training
for this.

you know that
baby swallows make silver ripples
in wild rivers to court reeds?

I am still waiting for the lion

Every so often, they add a tattoo
in honor of some long-forgotten love.

my father holds
his favorite drink

Should have found a job by now; should have slept in the night;
should have boiled old coffee before noon.

Any still figure at mid-late evening, when the long shadows make even crumbs appear arranged like furniture.

The sin is existing.

I count my homes—
those of my scattered youth
the sanctuary of our young family
the intermittent rest stops
of apartments and vacations.

Even as the sun warms the concrete
the long nights’ sensual cold lingers in my clothes.

and apples, mackintosh mostly, but any kind left in The Pub
at the Assisted Living Place