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

you quit wearing pants
loaf around your yard
in hole-nipped panties

You’ve spent a lifetime training
for this.

He has stories that I am not in
anymore. It’s healed this way.

My grandmother asked, “Does it feel like being widowed?”

Long after midnight, we’re talking about our first time

You let the yellow glow
from eye sockets. The building up the street
is burning faster and faster.

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

I like to think I’m also sprung,
released from the furnace knocks,
done with the heavy meat stews
and salty soups.

Okay, picture this: We’re in an elevator. The elevator shuts down. It doesn’t matter where we’re going, only that we’re alone.

You are strange, my mother said, dwelling on the past.

Winter sat like a wolf
on the horizon.

Long after midnight, we’re talking about our first time

a folksome, gruesome opera
of gauze and malcontent.

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

I tap at the alphabet while a single deer
taps at the dirt beyond the brush
on the far side of the tree line.

I would always rather be happy than
dignified. Rather held than held
in awe.