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

Gravel-scatted hell &
we were blessed to be able
to hold on for even a heartbeat

You’ve spent a lifetime training
for this.

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

In my universe, my arm carries a heart and flowers,
my back a misguided quote

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

If my life was the size of my arm, I would stretch it out for you.

Just starlight and some small scribbling across vinyl.

and then her eyes fully opened — blazed through with strands of mud

here is the sky in stop motion, flickering,
a still shot in monochrome

my friends’ fathers are
dropping
I mean dying
like flies

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

Ghosts for hire, whispers in her mouth,
cysts to feel, the symmetry of a gift.

Now that the Israeli has left, it falls
on me to make the salad.

Do not say anything anybody else has said ever. Things are not “bleached by sun.”

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

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