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

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

the man is stayed bent over the canvas
of my sofa. the man is me the man is him
self and I bring down the whip…

Mostly he ate what was put on his plate
snuck coffee grounds or dirt for a snack
Once a zipper Unzipped

You’ve spent a lifetime training
for this.

Ma wrings
a wet world
of colors

my friends’ fathers are
dropping
I mean dying
like flies

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

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

We found in his suitcase T-shirts, his siddur, gifts he bought for his grandchildren…

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

I am not a guide
for every traveler
of loss.

I myself should never have been born

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.

Lights on the dashboard spell out
“You still can’t kiss me”

Empty vessels
make the most sound, I think,
as you rip the fairy lights off the handrail.

Part of being a good sad person
is always painting the shadows
in the right direction and knowing
what sorrow to art with.

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