contumacious

Uneasily eloquent, it's also

all so forgettable

like a forty-eighth climax, who's counting?

Let's drop a penny in the fountain, watch the bright

staid face wetten and diminish

as an old party photo might, night image

from this distance

our skin, tanned from such surfeits of summer sun,

still smells young, tones

brought out by some nicely whipped aerobic nothings

I remember,

while we hula through these ringlets

of time, I ran after

her and woke up alone beside

an unread (by me) dog-eared library discard of Exile's Return by Cowley.

Man, why can't I just let it go?

Here we are back in the light of a late winter afternoon.

We use lots of words to describe light but do we

ever consider light's feelings?

If the light in this room had a skin

it would need a strong creamy moisturizer.

If the light outside had a fear

it would be a specific twenties flavor of shame and embarrassment

Justice is the obsolescence of smug, w/

school officials on the nightly news who

offer their thoughts on what absences mean, or dareIsay, give face to

the 'voice of absence.'

Be careful, coach said, of drinking more than 12 oz. of coffee,

it will parch you, and alcohol

will warm your blood making it easier to freeze

to death, they managed to chide me about good posture

irreticent administrators, coming home to dirty

dishes in the busted rusted Buick while blasting classic

rock, swells of courage never coming

back, who was it who said

a group of millennials is called a Debt?

Fat plaid wounds plunging into financial thistles.

Austin was never going to work out

for us, luxury rent doesn't grow on

trees chopped and pulped into modern dance and creative writing degrees

I had a photo of her pirouettes in the snow

I wrote a story about the backward guy who remembered his memories of the future

like when you signed up for that student loan

coming down the brick stairs a guy waved me over welcomingly

because he recognized me as my father's son

so back in my car I thought to text Dad and later still

had an interrupted dream

of those untroubled years before I was around

how my father's mustache persisted throughout the late seventies and

all of the eighties.

So far what have we?

The shaggy carpet lining of the universe, rust-red-stained

limestone towers beneath which we smoked cigarettes

and glistening existence a miasma of chaos,

velvet cupcakes, round, friendly fractals

candles burnt at both their ends.

Here we are at the part with the questions

What is a curse? A curse is only an idea.

"Like a vow?" she asked, before she had to leave

a painting on the wall that seems to suggest ownership by a cat lover

I'm here alone, with your stuff

Yours, yours, yours, not ours, I address my letters

inappropriately so it would feel weird to use your name in its entirety.

another unsettled desire, it's true

lately everything is worse, you weren't wrong, or aren't

making it up, it's been a hard winter, exacerbated by the collusion with

your inability to receive love /

my ability to offer

here, I hear you, through radio silence though still going

whole months strong like this in which I used to get wasted,

now wasting time 

on President's Day rebates coming in crimson colored boxes.

Where we will keep the relics of our paradise years?

Sourdough golden

oldie Gods, those low

vibrations in your bones, that is your self. The band

wailed long enough that time, depression, stopped, a truly mythic set

and Aphrodite's green-eyes and powder-blue t-shirt,

standing next to you in the supermarket searching

for Shamrock brand Half & Half and new experiences

before freedom ends,

it's ironic that the Greek idea of Sisyphus' divine punishment 

describes the typical American's 9-5.

She dreams of a vacuum cleaner that's not broken

Is that or love too much to ask? 

What even is love, anyway? Because,

we've been together for a while now and mostly want to be

alone. Don't like listening to talk. I like being asleep 

beside you in bed, can we do better or

Is that it? I suppose life sucks

less when showing love

especially when compared to my crunching away at this

solipsistic tirade, the fake contumacious cadence I'd once perfected

like walking in an antiques shop

boil away our hectic lamentations in sweat

and here are are at the part with no safeguards,

most nights I end up down

near the river, something so satisfying in being held

by the water. In many small inconsequential ways

I have fallen into choices that resonate,

a very pleasant low rise life, it turns out that this is true

of most people floating with-

out assurances. How deep

(is the water)? We have no idea.

river rudders and the solid shivering boatlaunch banks of concrete

Hedge your bets, pull your punches, risk little, nothing

wrong with that, in fact there's a lot right in

choosing to follow a life along the well-worn path

family, school, career, why take responsibility for

the madness that is

 freedom? It is, as I have pointed out, uneasy

and also forgettable

like all of these things, where'd you get all these things

clothes, books, lamps, picture of the 

guy we called brick, what was his real name?

it would feel weird to know or use, now

that here we are, alone,

with your stuff

I never called you but I could.