You were always a better fan than lover. That’s harsh to say and possibly untrue. Probably unfair. But I can’t revise it. So I’ll havta let it stand.
Only problem is where I havta go to let it stand.
My feet slip in the mud and I bang my head on a brick and a torrent of water rushes the blood away.
Straining on tippy toe gulping water and balancing that pole balancing that pole balance that pole.
That last poem was supposed to be the first one of the night, not the last one, and certainly not the only one, but it came to me fully formed and perfect, and it overwhelmed me.
I stepped into the moonlight sipping coffee
and clank the capstan slides under
the pinch roller sucking in tape
while the playhead snapped into place
tape tugging behind pressure pads.
The meters pegged out momentarily
as he turned out of me
faced the wall and sold it
perfect whole and true.
His voice catching and hitching
like it meant something
and he got the perfect sneer in the last line.
A poem exploded somewhere and I was standing in the path of the blast wave.
I had to shut myself up and be like what was that. And he repeated the performance, spot on, same tears same sneer. And again I insisted.
It was done. I couldn’t deny that. It was handed to me having been harvested, packed and express-delivered from some infernal co-op.
The insert read that it came into your world having been forged, over countless time, in the heart of a far off pyre, seasoned with and prepared by time.
I feel like Jesus, a sacrificial lamb, and a scapegoat
In one convenient one-use only pack
Custom-made to die for your sins.
What am I doing walking around like this
Like I could cope
What made me think that
Like I wasn’t walking around big chunk missing
Nothing to fill it with but despair
And what happens when I run out
What am I doing walking around like this
Like I was a people.
I don’t want to cry in public
I’ve done it too much
He’ll say to the face
And scurry for the door.
