The Streets Are Named After Presidents

                            it was
                            small interludes
                            made for us
                            in small towns.

                            you never took me line dancing
                            at the top of the cock
                            but it is a spectacle,
                            a sight to behold,
                            a free show where I grinned ear to ear
                            and where you should go back to one day.

                            I remember the warmth 
                            of your room, the scent 
                            of your vaporized essential oils,
                            the taste of your (secretive) flavored nicotine,
                            the texture of oily pearled couscous in our mouths,
                            the cherry tomatoes you freshly cut

                            I remember the rain and
                            the movies
                            and your stupid broken down dark green stick shift car
                            and feeling this whole time
                            like
                            I was in a dream,
                            a romantic novel,
                            being carried along a set of wondrous rusted tracks,
                            the moss and the wood planks
                            and the kind family and smiling friends
                            and music down the street and
                            secret places from your childhood
                            were all something else, something crazy,
                            something moving and glowing and possessing the stones

                            you once said that when
                            someone falls in love with you
                            they’re really just falling in love
                            with themselves,
                            because you are a canvas, a mirror,
                            showing people the best parts of themselves

                            but to use your own common rejoinder
                            against you:
                          “I don’t believe you.”

                            I think you were just scared of feeling what they felt, too.

                            I wonder how many hearts can crack
                            before we must give this all up,
                            I wonder if we are really just forever twenty-one.

                            I wonder if days and nights like those 
                            are still in your grasp, as they aren’t for me,
                            I wonder if the mania of meaning still shocks up your spine.

                            I don’t think about you old anymore, with thick gray hair.
                            I have only the vision of your old house,
                            your old roommate (walking in on us), 
                            your old cat, your old dog,
                            the feel of the air when you were walking around

                            your old dog is dead, your old cat is dead, 
                            your old house is full of strangers,
                            your old roommate, I truly hope and pray,                
                            does not still work at McDonald's.

                            I don't know about that feeling though.

                            it was another world when we knew each other,
                            a place quite apart,
                          “the streets are named after presidents,”
                            and time will not restart.

                                                  Dead Languages

        I still speak in dead languages,
        the languages taught to me 
        in little moments of joy and heartache,
        of friendly chidings and knockout fights,
        of instructions for carnal passion and good gardening,
        taught to me by those who once held 
        all that there was of life for me,
        the people I loved beyond reason,
        where I hold what I can of them now.

        most every day their words find their way 
        out and through me,
        I still speak as they once spoke to me,
        using their pet words and phrases,
        wearing their funny vocal affectations on 
        to make myself laugh again,
        rescuing our old inside jokes from oblivion,
        trying to breathe life into their once vibrant and 
        clever terms of endearment.

        I almost always smile in these languages,
        so pleasant to my ear,
        first with a sparking smile of joy
        followed by a different kind,
        remembering what it was like when these 
        gentle words were new.
        I speak these languages now as all lonely native speakers
        of dead languages do,
        to keep themselves sane amongst those 
        who couldn’t begin to understand 
        what these words really mean.

                                            The Closest Looks We Ever Get

                 in the past year I have driven by Mt. Shasta,
                 north or south, ten times at least

                 I think of her every time, 
                 knowing what happened up there

                 I remember her kindness, 
                 her smile, her silliness, 
                 and watching you two reconnect,
                 I remember feeling lucky to see part of your life through her,
                 I remember where we visited her, an Oregon town
                 with less purpose now,
                 I remember our dinner and drinks and the angle she sat,
                 I remember saying goodbye in the parking lot,
                 and I try to remember what her voice sounded like

                 I remember her telling us
                 she was going down to climb the mountain soon,
                 and that she would see us again

                 I remember your phone call that morning,
                 through tears, listening to your shaky voice in the dark,
                 telling me she was gone

                 I remember the old video of her in the car,
                 sporting sunglasses, turning to the camera 
                 and laughing a goofy laugh

                 I remember us sitting atop terrace hill, both times,
                 evening and morning,
                 sharing remembrances of her,
                 of searching and finding,
                 of friends and long car rides,
                 of new homes and guideposts,
                 of ski trips and tent spikes,

                 I remember your anger and sadness,
                 both right and direct,
                 but thankful you got to see her again

                 that sharp white mountain —
                 bracing and towering,
                 cold and forever,
                 big brother to the smaller one,
                 piercing the sun,
                 seen for hundreds of miles in every direction,
                 where the sky cracks in circles,
                 committer of robbery —
                 brings her name back to me, every time,
                 in mind or on tongue,
                 spelled phonetically,
                 summons her face to the feeling,
                 and holds me in a place where we used to be,
                 before meanings of mountains had shifted,
                 before that last pilferage,
                 where grief was once shared between us,
                 an unbearable weight to look at and touch,
                 to pass from your hand to mine and back,
                 to try to make room for, begrudgingly so,
                 to slink towards and away,
                 maybe drink from its side,
                 someday ask and make fun of

                 but always held tight

                                                                     Al-Shanti

                      every time I hold a baby
                        I see the dozens of
                        dead Palestinian babies flash before me
                      again.
                         their blue lips. their green faces.
                     their fathers wailing into their faces,
                          their mothers cradling their heads (if they still have heads), 
                                    rubbing their cheeks,
                                       rocking the child back and forth
                                            one hand raised
                                             to the sky
                                              “there is no god but Allah”
                        I feel the baby’s warmth in my arms,
                                                    the legs kicking, the mouth searching,
                     the baby
                     looks up into
                   my eyes
                 and I want to
                             scream

                                                        Where Are You

              I dreamt we had a daughter.

              she was about two years old when you brought her over to see me.

              you let her go and she waddled over to me to say hello, 
              and I pulled her up onto my knee.

              she had your smile,
              and your light brown hair.

              and she hugged me with her little arms and said, “I love you.”

              I spoke softly in her ear that I loved her too

              and I held her close to me as I began to cry

              and you watched us from across the room.

                                                           Seraphim

                           I’d like to see a leather-skinned carny
                           take a swig from their whiskey bottle,
                           undo the critical safety bolts,
                           put the thing into overdrive,
                           and step into the twirling monster
                           hurling them up into the air
                           over sawdust and lights
                           and old-fashioned wonders,
                           their broken body
                           for all the world to see
                           careening through metal,
                           dirt,
                           and bone,
                           a perfect death rattle
                           delivered to them by the machine
                           they’ve been shuffling screaming children through
                           for murderous years on the circuit
                           day after unmarked day,

                           now that’s
                           a real close to the wire circus act
                           not seen or heard of
                           before or since

                                                                   Where Are We?

                     the lightning is approaching,
                                     I can see it enveloping the town,
                     canon fire beyond the trees,
                             the flash revealing form
                                    only for an instant,
                     a warzone panorama,
                     the bruised sky,
                     the electric breath of god making a home, here
                     in the middle of everything,
                     the haze of liquid dust
                            hangs over the green fields,
                                       the corn,
                                       the silo,
                                       the feeding ticks

                     I told you before
                     the time means something,
                            I told you,
                                 it carries you,
                            before I left,
                         to other visions and vantages,
                            whether time together 
                                         or time apart
                             it doesn’t matter,
                                 both move and have weight,
                                         both distend and erase,
                     I know you’ve felt as I do,
                             have felt many times in fact,
                         what life am I in?
                     where are we,
                     who was that, who said that,
                            how long does it take
                     before each part and parcel,
                                 once single and central,
                                       are finally effaced?

                     her green eyes are
                                   brown eyes
                                          are blue eyes
                                             are flecked with the same gold, painted

                     was it Kansas or Virginia or Ohio,
                                the place you left,
                          Manhattan or Harrisonburg or Cinci,
                                         the place you’ll return,
                     was it you who said that?
                                        you who spoke of Spanish revolutions?
                              of speaking in tongues?
                                       had boyfriends with guns in their trunks?
                     or was it someone else?

               I met a girl who said that everyone she’s ever cared about 
               seems so far away, a girl whose great aunt is dying,
               I met a girl who said she’s been reading from a script for far too long, 
               who described the insecurity of multiple partners as a 
               lonely life, a life devoid of continuity and understanding, 
               whose older brother became a Californian and now she wants 
               to follow too,
               I met a girl who said she’d felt like she’d never been loved, 
               whose parents are recently divorced and who is unprecious 
               with her tattooed skin but is certainly precious with her heart,

                     I see all of them in every girl I’ve ever loved,
                     I see all of them in you,
                     I see some of you in all of them

                     how many years can pass by before the
                     return is no longer a homecoming?
                        how many beating hearts can
                             shatter,
                     how many acts and days and hands can fold
                     before we pass each other 
                     on the street
                     without a gesture?
                     
                     to miss a birthday,
                          to miss tradition,
                              to lose the name you gave me,
                     where does it go?
                                  I cannot hold these things alone,
                     as much as I try
                                 unceasing time,
                                                   quite alive,
                                            takes the rest,
                                              a little bit every day

                     I missed you meeting 
                             the daughter of your brother, your only brother.
                     in the picture of you holding her, healthy,
                     you look like you might be crying.
                     I’ve seen that tearful smiling face before.
                                     I wondered if you thought,
                             gazing, amazed,
                     of your own childhood,
                     of giving this new life something you did not receive,
                     something you wanted

                     the thunder is here now,
                                the violent country is sleeping,
                           hangers on are getting drunk at the zoo down the street,

                     I thought I knew the deflection of time,
                                       how it slows and rewrites,
                                untouched graffiti can take your breath away,
                                     unbroken conversations in lonely college hallways
                                     from years ago past 
                          with misunderstood older girls, 
                           their hair dyed green,
                     spoken under the same storms and 
                     warm Midwest nights like these,
                     they still creep in,
                     they still surprise,
                     so long as the architecture doesn’t die,
                     
                     I thought I knew the shape of time,
                     expanding and contracting,
                     a ribcage mighty to destroy,
                     I never learned that the flash reveals only one side,
                     the width of your single vantage,
                     I never learned that all of it could go away,
                     without keepers
                     without words
                     without stories,
                     without will and defiance,
                     without little questions
                     and simple kind reminders,

                     the time still means something,
                     spent good or spent bad,
                     dead or alive,
                     the exchange stays the same

                     to share it again,
                     I don’t know,
                     to what place 
                     would it possibly carry us?

                     the hard rain is here,
                     the plicking droplets are hot,
                     reminding me of something
                     I can’t remember what

                                                                   Christmas

                 I’ve seen another world pass by
                 in the furrow of your brow,
                 seen all of creation drowned 
                 in the quick lick of your lips,
                 ancient ruins swept to dust 
                 by the lightest touch of your arm,
                 billions of beating hearts rose and fell
                 with the expansions and contractions 
                 of your ribcage,

                 the songs we sang were mighty to destroy

                 and when I saw you standing there 
                 that bright winter’s day,
                 squinting your eyes in the sunlight,
                 thinking, I’m sure, of the prospects 
                 of new novels and poems 
                 and fresh dirt beneath fingernails,

                 I prayed then,
                 I prayed,
                 tell me,
                 touch me,

                 before another world passes by,
                 before it’s all gone,

                 pray,
                 show me how it’s done.

                                                                    Sunnyvale

                 dozens of children ran the streets of Fernwood Circle
                 in Sunnyvale,
                 there were apricot orchards here
                 just a few minutes walk from our home,
                 the land put to use to grow
                 in the Santa Clara Valley,

                 that was it then,
                 modest-sized homes in a row
                 holding large-sized Catholic Italian families
                 with names like Antonioni, Cava, and Visconti,
                 stopping by to say hello,
                 surrounded by the cooling shade
                 of tens of thousands of apricot trees
                 in the sweltering summer sun of Sunnyvale

                 we ran from our tough olive-skinned fathers
                 into the protection of soft fruiting bodies,
                 not understanding our fathers' anger or religion,
                 knowing we didn’t need to,
                 that their old world of migration and privation
                 would pass away
                 and ours would prevail, simply
                 children laughing in trees

                 nobody knew, really, what we had then,
                 that all of it could be taken away,
                 that these things would be fenced off high from the likes of us

                 our father planted a lemon tree in the front yard,
                 giving some life to the land
                 after his years of only taking it
                 in the European theatre of war,
                 our neighbors would come by
                 with empty paper bags to
                 relieve us of the extras

                 I remember walking alone
                 through the endless rows of apricot trees, towering,
                 enveloping my boyish frame,
                 the days were languid,
                 slow, and long
                 I crouched at one of their trunks,
                 dug in the dry earth
                 for bugs, examined exploded balls of fruit,
                 and rubbed handfuls of dirt across my legs just to feel it

                 yellow light peered through at me,
                 the Mediterranean sun had followed us there

                 every single one of those apricot trees
                 is gone now,
                 our parents are gone,
                 the children are gone,
                 the asphalt and the silicon
                 and the private armaments 
                 uprooted all of us

                 today, different children of a
                 newer world blockaded the streets
                 going into and out of 
                 the Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman facilities,
                 buildings full of data,
                 replacement parts, and deathly bodies
                 where our apricot orchards once stood,
                 full of systems managers
                 increasing their stock price
                 selling weapons to thirsty tyrants,
                 those tens of thousands of apricot trees, clear cut
                 so that tens of thousands of human beings
                 could be vaporized in an instant,
                 with names like Shawish, Halawa, and Al-Shanti

                 our apricot orchards sliced away
                 so that their olive orchards
                 in holy lands far away
                 could suffer the same

                 children digging in the dry earth
                 for bones, examining exploded shells of ordinance,
                 and rubbing their hands together in anguish

                 there is a saying in Arabic:
                 fil mishmish.
                 roughly translated:
                 in the time of the apricots.
                 it is said ironically to mean:
                 it will never happen.

                 our home in Sunnyvale is still there,
                 newly occupied,
                 the land worth millions
                 to those who run the facilities nearby

                 our father’s lemon tree still stands

                 there aren’t any neighbors stopping by to say hello,
                 there aren’t any children running the streets 
                 of Fernwood Circle,
                 there aren’t any apricot trees for them to
                 escape to,

                 fil mishmish

                                                               Long Drive, I Found

                           at a rest stop
                           somewhere in Oregon
                           written on a men’s bathroom toilet paper dispenser:

                         “come to the next exit
                           and fuck me at the salt barn”

                           I drove past the next exit
                           and saw a man
                           shoveling salt 
                           underneath blue work lights

                           wonder if he’s getting solicitations.

                                                                    Message

                        To:

                        Buddy Holly
                        Patsy Cline
                        Carole Lombard
                        Lynyrd Skynyrd
                        John Denver
                        Otis Redding
                        Jim Croce
                        Ricky Nelson
                        Rocky Marciano
                        Jim Reeves
                        Will Rogers
                        Dayton Stratton
                        JFK Jr.
                        Steve Fossett
                        Stevie Ray Vaughan
                        Richie Valens
                        Bill Graham
                        Kobe Bryant,

                        Don't fly in private aircraft.

                                                              The Way You Move

                    this is the only kind of faith
                    that I have,
                    I say, without evidence,
                    that what we do in this life –
                    who we are to each other –
                    goes beyond ourselves, beyond
                    time bounds,
                    beyond our painful material,
                    it reaches, 
                    it moves,
                    it carries a banner,
                    where it will go
                    and how long it will travel
                    and even, obnoxiously, what that
                    banner declares 
                    is beyond our control,
                    but go it does

                    we radiate,
                    we live in other minds,
                    we are carried to places unthought,
 
                    and out there deep
                    in the vastness of our universe,
                    travelling at terminal speed through
                    the blackened firmament,
                    piercing,
                    is the image of you
                    getting a new tattoo,
                    tears running down your cheeks and 
                    wiping them on your pillow,
                    is the image of you 
                    holding new life in your hands,
                    is the image of you
                    lingering beside a lonely road
                    and not saying anything
                    but wanting to remember this,
                    not wanting to forget this view 
                    and, and the feeling, again,
                    the thing you can’t name inside you,
                    the image of you opening your
                    eyes unto the world, the blue,
                    the I couldn’t believe I couldn’t tell they were blue,
                    the image of you in a chair by a creek,
                    the image of you burying your lips in my cheek,

                    these and other things,

                    I cannot show you the marks,
                    the indents on my brain,
                    the letters scribed within my chest,

                    I have no evidence
                    you see,
                    none of us do,
                    all I can tell you
                    is that these things are there,
                    the good and the bad,
                    everything really,
                    going and going,
                    moving and moving

                    it’s the only faith that I have

                    the only thing I hold on to

                                                                  You Were No Place

                           I must see you again,
                           Now that we’ve done something,
                           Now that there are glimmers and flashes and 
                           strikes of light on the edges of the world again,
                           but,
                           you were no place.

                           it’s funny to think
                           lying sideways here 
                           on the cold hardwood floors
                           that there’s really not much left
                           for all of us here,
                           at least
                           not what generations before
                           took as their birthright

                           whether time
                           or hope
                           or childish future,
                           the hands of work
                           and labor of fruit,
                           the west is drying out
                           and the east is subsumed

                           and it’s funny to put it that way
                           for
                           after all
                           there’s still time
                           to do this
                           and do that
                           and the other,

                           I thought I knew the shape of time,
                           expanding and contracting,
                           a ribcage mighty to destroy,
                           I never learned that the flash reveals only one side,
                           the width of your single vantage,
                           I never learned that all of it could go away,

                           to play with the lives of daughters in a faraway war
                           who couldn’t be crushed or carted off or drawn on paper
                           but who could be loved and vaporized in an instant
                           you were no place
                           in sight and mind 
                           the streets were forever lonely
                           you were no place
                           wanted 
                           you were no place
                           to be found 
                           you were no place
                           even mapped,
                           I know there’s somewhere that you’ll always be,
                           I know you’ll remember,
                           we’ve both been there before,
                           in the pool and behind the café and after the crowd let out 
                           it meant everything,
                           the rocks and the police and the dark music couldn’t beat 
                           that power you had, 
                           so just tell me that you’ll be there again, 
                           I must see you,
                           but,
                           you were no place.

                   I Can’t Seem To Get Over How Pretty The Whole Wide World Is

it is all I can give,
this is all I can tell you,

there will only ever be camera flashes
of interesting, beautiful things,
of feeling the way you want to feel,
of big dinners (paid with food stamps),
of remembering what it was like,
of something a little like pretending
this is always

(you and I in a big open brick building with concrete floors 
(lit by a single white light in the corner) 
dancing to my favorite song of yours —
loud — 
laughing and crying in each other’s faces,
harmonizing as best we can,
hands to hands.)

and much boredom and ignobleness besides

(your hair is long these days.)

I can't promise,

I can only hope,

that cracks like these will continue to show.

                        She Left A Dirty Napkin On The Floor of My Minivan

            scrunched up in the fabric of an old, torn sleeping bag,
            remnants of a fast food picnic.

            earlier,
            standing across from each other,
            me outside her window,
            I looked at her, the self that she called her self,
            her eyes looking back at mine, feeling naked,
            her cheeks tensed in a forever pre-smile,
            a quicksand of knowing and silence between us,
            her hair freshly cut and pulled back,
            a little messy, a little bohemian, 
            the romantic version of poverty,
            it’s fun and it’s cute 
            until it’s not,
            it was nice to see her that way, 
            it was like a little secret that the bigwigs never get to see.
            
            standing there,
            our happiness and our loneliness being fed by precisely the same thing,

            “you’re so pretty,” she said.
            “stop,” I said.

            the two of us, always ready for the next crush to come along, 
            taking a precious respite there, raindrops plicking on the metal roof,

            and, well,
            I loved her then,
            as I had felt before, but fallen out of since.

            I was thinking of a time when she asked me 
            to remove her boots after coming home from work. 
            the laces were thick with water and, as she always did,
            double-knotted. I struggled.
            “jesus, I’m just going to cut these off.”
            “no you’re not,” she said.
            “you could just be like me and leave your shoes on until you go to bed.”
            “no. I don’t understand you.”
            “uh-huh.”

            I smiled at the memory.
            “yes?” she said through her window.
            “oh, nothing,” I said.
            “tell me.”

            I couldn’t say what made me smile.
            I couldn’t tell her that I loved her then.
            I just asked her, “is this what you want?”
            I expected her to ask for clarification of the question, 
            what do you mean?
            but, 
            she didn’t.

            there was a pause. an inhale. a little tilting of the head. 
            she hummed and then spoke,

            “in the end, there’s no turning really. 
            it’s like those toy steering wheels you give to kids 
            to entertain themselves in the car. 
            and I think I’m afraid of going one way or the other. 
            both are too painful.”

            the self she called her self was rocked, upended, “derailed,”
            careening into trees,
            twisting limbs beneath the sheets at night,
            dark, baggy eyes in the morning.
            maybe the self got up from bed and 
            snuck away for midnight snacks,
            went for long drives after another argument,
            leaving the body to sort it all out.

            the self wanted to know itself apart from others,
            apart from the body’s shifting, degrading skin.

            what was the self if not the vision 
            it had given
            when looking in the mirror,
            when reading a book and putting it down,
            if not the space between the ticking,
            when laughing along with others
            or becoming bored at the sound of its own voice?

            maybe the self could not be placed,
            could not be named,
            could not be divorced,
            could only, instead, be drug along,
            unwillingly, indulgently
            by the body which moored it,
            which painfully stitched the shadow of the self to the 
            flesh of the body,
            seamed ankle to ankle.

            I asked her, 
            “are there certain songs you would like included on 
            your funeral playlist?”
            “no. I guess it doesn’t matter.”
            “do you have an outfit you’d like to be dressed in?”
            “just burn me.”

            she used the word 

                                          burn.

            and I thought, well, that would be a sight.
            no clinical, private cremation, 
            but a real public burning of the body,
            elevated on the pyre,
            the self still sewed on, 
            black smoke rising,
            desperately waiting for someone 
            to throw them the seam rippers.

            and I pictured her then, prepared for the flames
            as I suppose I usually pictured her,
            her thick hair down, no fuss,
            a plain grey t-shirt, tight on her abdomen,
            and her everyday combat boots, thick soled,
            laced high and tight,
            double-knotted.

            “I suck in high heels,” she’d say. 

            it was simple.
            it was how she looked when we went on walks together,
            made appearances at dinner parties,
            did yard work on the weekends,
            fell in and out of each other, city by city.

            the self moving always
            in curved lines,
            grasping the wheel,
            wondering what other selves were thinking about
            and wanting a little verbal validation that what she was doing
            was alright.

            “just tell me what to do and then I’ll feel okay.”

            to move and be moved,
            I mean really moved,
            rare as it is,
            standing in the face of each other then,
            I wished I could tell her, well,
            everything, really,
            wished to help with the removal of boots again,
            an unsexy chore done in a sexy way,
            worlds communicated in just lingering glances,
            wished to reach across to her
            and close the gap in time and space,
            wished to tell her, 
            wait a minute, hold the phone,
            we are more than mere sidepieces searching for patronage, 
            we are more than starving, 
            more than imposters,
            more than what the audience discusses after the show 
            when lying in bed with their date,

            the very life you exchange for something 
            is measured how?
            in time apart?
            in losses of feeling,
            finalized?
            in overwhelming conversations
            and the weight of our choices?
            in an unsolvable loneliness?
            in a self remembering the long drives and train stations, 
            the half-forgotten libretto 
            and the just out of reach 
            Debussy piece,
            the teaching of heart and soul
            and the neverending days of living in the city,
            the city you’ll return to,
            kicking up sparks,
            the self making a name and hunting, always hunting,
            a self pushing her hair over her ears,
            a self embracing self much too nearly,
            a self still wondering, 
            why does the body stay home at night?
            would the body like to join me?
            where do our bodies end 
            and our selves begin,
            and what happens in between? 

                                                                 8 Toes

               when I think of you siting on your crying couch,
               holding on to a cup of homemade cocktail 
               and hoping for a secular life,
               something like a never-ending trip to Europe and discovery,
               far away from mom and dad and older brother 
               eking out their theocratic time in Kansas,
                  
               sitting on your crying couch 
               as the walls are rattling in the night 
               and your muscles are wasting away,
               I saw you, 
               a woman riding high in her head 
               and not stopping for the others to catch up,
               the single adult in the room,
               you weren’t stupid enough to catch feelings 
               or to leave the gin untarnished,
               when I think of you searching and self-deprecating 
               and dancing face to face with dark, clear-eyed boys, 
               selling your ribs, 
               latching on like a marsupial, 
               sharing your best time as the most important thing not to be wasted,

               it means more than you know,

               your severed toes 
               are lying somewhere in the village,

               looking into your eyes on your crying couch 
               and sharing something, 
               just a moment to remember imperfectly through blurred vision 
               over and over again through blurred vision,
                  
               thinking of you sitting on your crying couch,
               sitting on you sitting on your crying couch,
               hoping for a slow time on Oxford street,
               marveling at the latest fashions,
               saying that you’ll make something better someday
               inside a secular life, 
               with everyone else one-hundred miles behind you 
               trying to find the same thing
               vibrant and real, 
                  
               when I think of you sitting there,
               it’s probably best, 
               you or I would be unfair to each other,
               these words will be in the trash
               and can I ask you what you were thinking then?
               that slow look you gave,
               years ago now.
                  
               how's the marriage going?

               names get logged and secrets die,
               the money runs out eventually,
               but you in a good crying chair
               with a good drink
               and a rosey head 
               pushing your (dry shampooed) hair over your ears,
               remembering the long drives and the train stations,
               remembering the impossible fields,
               the loneliness you couldn't understand,
               but leaving something for everyone else to notice the next day, 
                  
               it sends the mind wandering to where you are, 
               what you’re doing, 
               are you happy, are you alive, 
               and have you found the perfect place 
               to sit and watch 
               the sky turn black to blue 
               on the nights when you can’t sleep 
               and no one else is around